GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR DYEING The materials should be perfectly clean; soap should be rinsed out in soft water; the articles hould be entirely wetted, or it will spot; light colours should be steeped in brass, tin or earthen; and, if set at all, should be set with alum. Dark colours should be boiled in iron, and set with copperas; too much copperas rots the thread. FOR COLOURING SKY BLUE Get the blue composition; it may be had at the druggist's, or clothier's, for a shilling an ounce. If the articles are not white, the old colours should all be discharged by soap or a strong solution of tartaric acid, then rinsed; 12 or 16 drops of the composition, stirred into a quart-bowl of warm water, and strained if settlings are seen, will dye a great many articles. If you want a deeper colour, add a few drops more of the composition. If you wish to colour cotton goods, put in pounded chalk to destroy the acid, which is very destructive to all cotton; let it stand until the effervescence subsides, and then it may be safely used for cotton or silk. FOR LILAC COLOUR Take a little pinch of archil, and put some boiling hot water upon it, add to it a very little lump of pear-lash. Shades may be altered by pear-lash, common slat, or wine. TO COLOUR BLACK Logwood and cider, boiled together in iron, water being added for the evaporation, makes a good durable black. Rusty nails or any bits of rusty iron, boiled in vinegar, with a small piece of copperas, will also dye black; so will ink powder, if boiled with vinegar. In all cases, black must be set with copperas. TO DYE LEMON COLOUR Peach leaves, bark scraped from the barberry bush, or saffron, steeped in water, and set with alum, will colour a bright lemon, drop in a little gum-arabic to make the articles stiff. TO DYE ROYAL PURPLE Soak logwood chips in soft water until the strength is out, then add a teaspoonful of alum to a quart of the liquid; if this is not bright enough, add more alum, rinse and dry. When the dye is exhausted, it will colour a fine lilac. TO DYE SLATE COLOUR Tea grounds, boiled in iron vessels, set with copperas, makes a good slate colour. To produce a light slate colour, boil white maple bark in clear water, with a little alum. The bark should be boiled in brass utensils. The goods should be boiled in it and then hu TO DYE SCARLET Dip the cloth in a solution of alkaline or metallic salt, then in a cochineal dye, and let it remain some time, and it will come out per manently coloured. Another method: 1/2 lb. of madder, 1/2 oz. of cream tartar, and 1 oz. of marine acid to 1 lb. of cloth; put it all together, and bring the dye to a scalding heat; put in your materials, and they will be coloured in ten minutes. Th e dye must be only scalding hot. Rinse your goods in cold water as soon as they come from the dye. TO COLOUR A BRIGHT MADDER For 1 lb. of yard or cloth, take 3 ozs. of madder; 3 ozs. of alum; 1 oz. of cream tartar; prepare a brass kettle with two gallons of water, and bring the liquor to a steady heat, then add your alum and tartar, and bring it to a boil; put in your cloth, and boil it two hours; take it out, and rinse it in cold water; empty your kettle, and fill it with as much water as before; then add your madder; rub it in fine in the water before your cloth is in. When your dye is as warm as you can bear your hand in, then put in your cloth, and let it lie one hour, and keep a steady heat; keep it in motion constantly, then bring it to a boil fifteen minutes, then air and rinse it. If your goods are new, use 4 ozs. of madder to a lb. TO COLOUR GREEN If you wish to colour green, have your cloth as free as possible from the old colour, clean, and rinsed; and, in the first place, colour it deep yellow. Fustic, boiled in soft water, makes the strongest and brightest yellow dye; but saffron, barberry-bush, peach-leaves, or onion-skins, will answer pr etty well. Next take a bowlful of strong yellow dye, and pour in a great spoonful or more of the blue composition, stir it up well with a clean stick, and dip the articles you have already coloured yellow into it, and they will take a lively grass-green. This is a good plan for old bombazet-curtains, dessert-cloths, old flannel for desk coverings, &c. TO DYE STRAW COLOUR AND YELLOW Saffron, steeped in earthen and strained, colours a fine straw colour. It makes a delicate or deep shade, according to the strength of the tea. Colouring yellow is described in receipt No.212. In all these cases a little bit of alum does no harm, and may help to fix the colour. Ribbons, gauze handkerchiefs, & c., are coloured w ell in this way, especially if they be stiffened by a bit of gum-arabic, dropped in while the stuff is steeping. TO DYE A DRAB COLOUR Take plum tree sprouts, and boil them an hour or more; add copperas, according to the shade you wish your articles to be. White ribbons take very pretty in this dye. TO DYE PURPLE Boil an ounce of cochineal in a quart of vinegar. This will afford a beautiful purple. TO DYE BROWN Use a teaspoonful of soda to an ounce of cochineal, and a quart of soft water. TO COLOUR PINK Boil 1 lb. of cloth an hour in alum water, pound 3/4 of an oz. of coc hineal and mix 1 oz. of cream of tartar; put in a brass kettle, with water, enough to cover the cloth; when about blood hot, put in your cloth, stir constantly, and boil about fifteen minutes. TO DYE A COFFEE COLOUR Use copperas in a madder-dye, instead of madder compound. TO DYE NANKIN COLOUR The simplest way is to take a pailful of lye, to which put a piece of copperas half as big as a hen's egg; boil in a copper or tin kettle. TO MAKE ROSE COLOUR Balm blossoms, steeped in water, colour a pretty rose colour. This answers very well for the linings of children's bonnets, for ribbons, &c. TO DYE STRAW AND CHIP BONNETS BLACK Boil them in strong logwood liquor 3 or 4 hours, occasionally adding green copperas, and taking the bonnets out to cool in the air, and this must be continued for some hours. Let the bonnets remain in the liquor all night, and the next morning take them out, dry them in the air, and brush them with a soft brush. Lastly, rub them inside and out with a sponge moistened with oil, and then send them to be blocked. Hats are done in the same way. TO DYE WHITE GLOVES A BEAUTIFUL PURPLE Boil 4 oz. of logwood, and 2 oz. of roche-alum, in 3 pints of soft water, till half wasted; let it stand to be cold after straining. If they be old gloves let them be mended; then do them over with a brush, and when dry repeat it. Twice is sufficient unless the colour is to be very dark; when dry, rub off the loose dye with a coarse cloth; beat up the white of an egg, and with a sponge, rub it over the leather. The dye will stain the hands, but wetting them with vinegar before they are washed will take it off. TO BLEACH STRAW HATS, &c. Straw hats and bonnets are bleached by putting them, previously washed in pure water, in a box with burning sulphur; the fumes which arise unite with the water on the bonnets, and the sulphurous acid, thus formed, bleaches them. TO DYE SILKS BLACK To 8 gallons of water add 4 ozs. of copperas; immerse for 1 hour and take out and rinse ; boil 2 lbs. logwood chips, or 1/2 lb. of extract; 1/2 lb. of fustic; and for white silks, 1/2 lb. of nicwood; dissolve 2 lbs. of good bar-soap in a gallon of water; mix all the liquids together, and then add the soap, having just enough to cover the silk; stir briskly until a good lather is formed, then immerse the silk and handle it lively. The dye should be as warm as the hand will bear; dry quickly and without rinsing. The above is enough for 10 yards or one dress. TO COLOUR YELLOW ON COTTON Wet 6 lbs. of goods thoroughly; and to the same quantity of water add 9 oz. of sugar of lead; and to the same quantity of water in another vessel, add 6 oz. of bichromate of potash; dip the goods first into th e solution of sugar of lead, and next into that of the potash, and then again into the first; wring out, dry, and afterwards rinse in cold water. >From an old book of "useful receipts" from 1861, Toronto