Gentleman's Knickerbocker Stocking

This a pair of pretty generic men's stockings. I'm guessing that since there's a 5" section of "plain knitting" (stockinette) directly under the 1" of ribbing that these must be the type of stocking that went over the knee, then the knickerbockers buttoned below the knee over top of the stocking. The type that folds over usually has about 4"-5" of ribbing.

I've also seen gray mixed yarn referred to as "knickerbocker yarn" but that might just be that gray mixed yarn was a popular color for knickerbocker stockings. Hard to say.

This is the largest size, suitable for a gentleman of six feet in height.

Materials: Gray mixed yarn

Directions:

Cast on 112, 37 on two pins and 38 on the third pin.

Rib for about an inch by doing 1 plain and 1 pearl, remembering to have the first stitch on the first needle as the seam-stitch. You make this by working it plain in two successive rounds and pearling it in the next.

Then do plain knitting for 5 inches.

You now begin to rib as follows: Knit or pearl the seam-stitch, knit 3 and pearl 1. Continue to knit 3 and pearl 1 every row until 12.5 inches are done.

Then begin to decrease every eight rows. You decrease on the right-hand side of the seam-stitch by slipping a stitch, knit 1, pass the slipped stitch over. (If the stitch to be slipped happens to be a pearl stitch you must not slip it but merely pearl two together on both sides.) Work the seam-stitch and knit two together. You will thus decrease 16 stitches, and now 16.5 inches ought to be done.

Then knit five more inches. You ought now to have 94 stitches for the ankle and divide for the heel. [See notes on sock shaping.] As this is a large size you must make the flap 3.5 long, always slipping the first stitch.

When you have turned the heel you must take up 21 stitches and decrease for the instep at first every row, and the last 6 decreasings do every other row until you have only 92 stitches.
When 9 inches of the foot are done (measuring the whole of the heel as well) you begin to decrease for the toe, which takes up two more inches; you then cast off and sew up the toe on the wrong side.

The Lady's Book of Knitting, 1886.