122 POTASH-MAKING IN ESSEX : A LOST RURAL INDUSTRY.
without patriotism is in as bad a state as a regiment without esprit de
corps, and perhaps in a worse.
From some aged people I have received considerable help, but
there seem to be very few persons living who are practically con-
versant with the methods of manufacture. In fact, I have only
found two such; one of whom, Peter Smith at Tolleshunt Knights, is
about ninety years old ; and another, John Chisnell, aged seventy-six,
now in Colchester Union House, who in his childhood worked at a
"Potash" just over the border of the county, in Suffolk.
In my younger days I remember visiting the "Potash" at Roch-
ford, Essex, and later, that is, about forty-five years ago, I saw the
whole process at the Tolleshunt-D'Arcy "Potash." Fortunately I did
so, or I question whether I should have obtained so clear an account as
I was thus enabled to draw up from either of the above mentioned
old men.
From the description of the process given below anyone might be
able, supposing circumstances were favourable, to resuscitate the
manufacture in our county.
Various causes brought about the decay of this industry ; the
most important one was the general use of coal as a fuel, in the place
of wood. Formerly, wood was the only fuel in farmhouse and
cottage alike, as will be mentioned when giving the information
derived from some of my aged friends, but when this became scarce,
as it did by the destruction of woods and broad hedgerows at the end
of the last and beginning of the present century, it was necessary to
use some other fuel, and coal was generally adopted ; but between
the use of wood and the alteration of the fire places to receive coal,
the cottagers frequently burnt bean-straw and the dried seed-stalks
of turnips and other agricultural plants. The use of these for fuel
has continued in Foulness until the present day.
When wood and these other vegetable substitutes were used for
fuel, there was always plenty of raw material for the Potash-makers,
and the diminished supply of these ashes was one of the causes of the
decay of the industry.
The importance of the ashes of wood, straw, grasses, haulm, and
other vegetable refuse, in the manufacture of potash, will be apparent
when it is understood how large a proportion of the alkali is contained
in them. Much information on this subject may be obtained from
the results of analyses of the ashes of these various substances, by
Messrs. J. Thomas Way and G. H. Ogston, recorded in the "Journal