I. For this color it is advisable to use naturally white or bleached
feathers, scour or wash them clean in soap and warm water and remove
the soap by thoroughly rinsing in two warm and one cold waters. Prepare
a bath slightly acidulated with sulphuric acid, to which add eighty per
cent., of the weight of feathers, tartaric acid, eight per cent. azo
yellow, six per cent. fast brown, and three and a quarter per cent.
acid green. Enter the feathers at 100-120° F. and manipulate at that
temperature for ten or fifteen minutes. Then raise the temperature to
the boiling point (but do not boil), lay the feathers down in the bath
for one-half to one hour, while the bath cools down, lift, starch and
finish as usual.
II. Prepare a bath slightly acidulated with sulphuric acid, bring to
nearly boiling, add a concentrated solution of orange S. and some acid
green, enter the feathers and dye to shade; then pass them through a
week oil-bath, and dry them, placed straight between several laps of
clean muslin.
III. Prepare a bath of the decoction of twelve and a half per cent.,
of the weight of feathers, alum and twenty-five per cent. turmeric;
strain, enter the feathers at 170-190° F., and let them lie in the
bath over night. On the following day dye, at 100° F., with decoction
of fustet, tone with decoction of logwood or of brazil, according to
sample, starch and dry.