These rushes
are in best condition in the height of summer; but may be gathered,
so as to serve the purpose well, quite on to autumn. It would be
needless to add that the largest and longest are best. Decayed
labourers, women, and children, make it their business to procure
and prepare them. As soon as they are cut they must be flung into
water, and kept there; for otherwise they will dry and shrink, and
the peel will not run. At first a person would find it no easy matter
to divest a rush of its peel or rind, so as to leave one regular,
narrow, even rib from top to bottom that may support the pith: but
this, like other feats, soon becomes familiar even to children; and
we have seen an old woman, stone-blind, performing this business
with great dispatch, and seldom failing to strip them with the nicest
regularity. When these junci are thus far prepared, they must lie out
on the grass to be bleached, and take the dew for some nights, and
afterwards be dried in the sun.
Some address is required in dipping these rushes in the scalding fat
or grease; but this knack also is to be attained by practice.
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