VEGETABLE CLOTHING by C. J. Russell

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Dec 15, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 48.

VEGETABLE CLOTHING.

By C. J. Russell

ABOUT two hundred years ago the governor of the island of Jamaica, Sir Thomas Lynch, sent to King Charles II., of England, a vegetable necktie, and a very good necktie it was, although it had grown on a tree and had not been altered since it was taken from the tree.

A gentleman who witnessed two natives manufacturing this lace, thus describes it: A tree about twenty feet high and six inches in diameter, with a bark looking much like that of a birch tree, was cut down. Three strips of bark, about six inches wide and eight feet long, were taken from the trunk and thrown into a stream of water. Then each man took a strip while it was still in the water, and with the point of his knife separated a thin layer of the inner bark from one end of the strip. This layer was then taken in the fingers and gently pulled, whereupon it came away in an even sheet of the entire width and length of the strip of bark. Twelve sheets were thus taken from each strip of bark, and thrown into the water.

The men were not through yet, however, for when each strip of bark had yielded its twelve sheets, each sheet was taken from the water and gradually stretched sidewise. The spectator could hardly believe his eyes. The sheet broadened and broadened until from a close piece of material six inches wide, it became a filmy cloud of delicate lace over three feet in width. The astonished gentleman was forced to confess that no human-made loom ever turned out lace which could surpass in snowy whiteness and gossamer-like delicacy that product of nature.

The natural lace is not so regular in formation as the material called illusion, so much worn by ladies in summer; but it is as soft and white, and will bear washing, which is not true of illusion. In Jamaica and Central America among the poorer people it supplies the place of manufactured cloth, which they cannot afford to buy; and the wealthier classes do not by any means scorn it for ornamental use. The tree is commonly called the lace-bark tree. Its botanical name is Lageta lintearia.—C. J. Russell, in St. Nicholas for May.