Horsehair, badger, camel’s hair, etc., are ideal materials for some brushes. Many household brushes are made of horsehair, shaving brushes of badger, and the artist’s brush is made of camel’s hair when it can be had. Hearth brushes are sometimes made of the mane hair of the horse, wall brushes, too; sometimes goat hair is used. Among other brushes made of horsehair frequently are the crumb (table), pastry, bottle and dish washing (white hair). The very best white horsehair comes from the Russian pony and is very nearly as stiff as bristles. The black horsehair of the finest grade is also imported, as the domestic is not as good. Other horsehair comes from China, Australia, South America. FIBER OR BRISTLE When you buy a brush, if you don’t know a fiber from a bristle, ask your dealer. He may say: “No this is not bristle, it is made of Bass” (or Bassine, Kitool, Palmyra or Palmetto or Rice Root, or Mixed Fibers, or Union, or Union Marble, etc.). If he is a good dealer you need not fear, if his price is not very low you need not be suspicious, because no good brush is inexpensive to-day and no cheap brush is a saving. Of all the fibers Tampico (from Mexico, Central America largely), the product of a species of cactus plant, is probably the best fiber. Palmyra, too, is an excellent fiber, and comes from a plant indigenous to regions near the Indian Ocean and the Valley of the Tigris. What geographical scope we have in our homes! There are trade names for fibers such as Ox fiber, a fine quality of fiber from the cabbage palmetto, and many other trade named fibers which must be procured by ye purchasers only from purveyors of royal lineage. Brushes are made of mixtures of bristle and hair, such as some flesh brushes or hand brushes, the bristles taking the brunt of the action and holding the water better, yet protecting the hair. Fiber and bristles are sometimes used in combination, too. If you buy an “all bristle” brush you don’t want a mongrel variety. If it is a mixture you are getting a usable and amply priced brush. Black bristle is often made into pipe, window, stove, wall, radiator, milk bottle and percolator brushes. The color, black or white, of bristles doesn’t stamp quality. In some cases black bristles are bleached for esthetic reasons. For example, a white tooth brush is more attractive. The natural white bristle usually comes from China and the natural black from Siberia. Fibers in browns and whites, blacks and whites are mixed in brushes for appearances. Color in brushes is a matter of attractiveness and does not alter the usefulness or the wear of them. The number and variety of brushes on the market are tremendous--one firm makes sixty-nine ordinary household brushes, and besides this has others tucked away, to say nothing of the personal, industrial and professional classes of brushes. Thousands is not an exaggerated figure to apply to the variety of brushes for all uses on the market to-day.