says, "the people derived no other advantage from the shrub than to feed sheep and goats with it, and to heat their stoves and furnaces. But their ingenuity and industry have now made it far more profitable. They steep the twigs for some days in the thermal waters of Bagno a Acqua near Lucca. After this process the bark is easily stript off, and it is then combed and otherwise treated like flax. It becomes finer than hemp could be made; it is easily dyed of any color, and may be used for garments of any kind[1]." In the vicinity of Pisa we find that the twigs of the Spanish Broom were in like manner soaked in the thermal waters, and that a coarse cloth was manufactured from the bark[2].
But the manufacture has been carried to a far greater extent in the South of France. In the Journal de Physique, Tom. 30. 4to. An. 1787. p. 294., is a paper by Broussonet Sur la culture et les usages économiques du Genêt d'Espagne. A minute and highly curious account is here given of the mode of preparing the fibres, which is practised by the inhabitants of all the villages in the vicinity of Lodêve in Bas Languedoc. The shrub abounds on the barren hills of that region, and all that the people do to favor its growth is to sow the seed in the driest places, where scarce any other plant can vegetate. After being cut, the twigs are dried in the sun, then beaten, macerated in water, and treated in the same way as flax or hemp (See Zincke's process, Chapter XI.). The coarser thread is used to make bags for holding the legumes, corn, &c.; the finer for making sheets, napkins, and shirts. The peasants in this district use no other kind of linen, not being acquainted with the culture either of flax or hemp. The ground is too dry and unproductive to suit these plants. The linen made
- [Footnote: "Genista juncea flore luteo." This is the Spartium Junceum of Linnæus. See
Ray, Catal. Stirp. Europ. and Scopoli, Flora Carniolica, 1772, tom. i. No. 870.]
- ↑ Bononiensis Scientiarum atque Artium Instituti Commentarii, tom. iv. Bonon. 1757, p. 349-351. A similar account of the manufacture of the "Teladi Ginestia" at Bagno a Acqua is given by Mr. John Strange, who says he had sent an account of it to the Society for encouraging Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. Lettera sopra l'Origine della carta naturale di Cortona, Pisa 1764. p. 79.
- ↑ Mem. de l'Académie des Sciences, Paris 1763.
