THE Linum usitatissimum of botany, from which the English lint and linen are derived, is now, by the peculiar circumstances of the production and consumption of textiles, and the comparative success of mechanical invention in the direction of flax manufacture, brought very prominently to public view.  Many fibrous plants ave used for cordage, clothing, and other purposes; among them hemp, jute, various tropical plants, &c. The New Zealand flax, or Phormium tenax, is much stronger than Linum, and very valuable for canvas and cordage, but the latter has almost a monopoly of manufactures of its class, and is common in all civilized countries and to all ages, from the Jewish era of “purple and fine linen" to the present day.

The Commissioner of Agriculture has received, recently, from different parts of the country, specimens of fibrous plants, indigenous, and seemingly worthy of experiment. The fibre of one of them, a member of the Asclepia family, is very long, fine, abundant, and exceedingly strong.  It is not improbable that new textiles may yet added to the present list, and found more productive, more easily worked, or better adapted to particular uses than any others now known. The specimen of Asclepia in question has been submitted to experiments, similar to those by which flax is cottonized, and the result is a beautiful article, stronger than cotton or flax-cotton, fine and lustrous, and apparently susceptible of working upon cotton machinery. It is cottonized at less expense than flax.

The diffusion of intelligence, the extension of civilization, and the general accumulation of wealth, are active causes for increased demand for clothing.  The manufacture of cotton was nearly doubled between 1850 and 1860. It has now greatly declined, and flax will be required to help fill the hiatus and to supply the constantly augmenting demand. England has for several years averaged the consumption of about one hundred thousand tons of flax fibre, from a fourth to a third of which is produced in Ireland; nearly two-thirds is imported, Russia furnishing seventy per cent. of the importation, Prussia ten pex cent., and Holland, Belgium, France, Egypt, &c., the remainder.

Our own production of flax fibre has been for several years decreasing. It was nearly eight millions of pounds in 1849, and less than half as much in 1859. At the former period Virginia and Kentucky produced more than three millions, nearly half the crop. In these years a decrease is noted in every State in the Union except New York, which gave an increase of sixty per cent., and (to be literally correct) South Carolina, which advanced from 333 to 344 pounds. The principal increase in the seed crop was in Ohio and Indiana, which now produce about two-thirds of the seed in the United States—405,927 bushels of the 611,927 secured. It may seem remarkable, in view of this fact, that not a pound of flax is reported in Ohio, a State which grows nearly half of the entire seed crop of the country. In Indiana the decrease in flax in ten years was from 160,063 to 32,636 pounds.

The imports of flaxseed are small—in 1860, 513 bushels; in 1861, 104 bushels. The exports of 1860 were 2,715 bushels of seed and 37,809 gallons of oil; of 1861, 28,540 bushels of seed and 42,638 gallons of oil. The average prices of these exports were, in 1860, $1 40 per bushel for seed and 78 cents per gallon for oil; in 1861, $1 73 for seed, and 65 cents for oil.

The best barley land, in the flax districts of New York, is held to be the best flax soil. In the west, new prairie and old turf lands are frequently recommended. Recent timber clearings are desirable if suitably drained, or any good corn land, or rich, silicious soil in good tilth. Flax will grow well in any moist, deep, strong loam, upon upland. A light, sandy, soil should be avoided, as well as very low lands or river bottoms, upon which flax is very liable to mildew. Flax should be put in after some hoed crop, to be free from weeds.  A weedy soil, in any location, should not be thought of in connexion with this crop.

To prepare for sowing, deep ploughing and thorough harrowing are requisite, when the land is sufficiently dry, without regard to light frosts, which will do little injury. Many use a Michigan double plough, and pulverize with a cultivator, running it both ways; it is advantageous in inverting the surface and stirring the subsoil.

The best manures are phosphates, plaster, ashes, and salt: Three or four bushels of a mixture of equal quantities of the three latter have been used as a special flax manure. Dr. Ure says that 30 pounds potash, 28 of common salt, 34 of burnt gypsum, 54 of bone dust, and 56 of sulphate of magnesia, will replace the constituents of an average acre of flax.

Sow none but clean, bright seed. In the west, where flax is grown for seed alone, little more than half a bushel per acre is planted. The seed is generally contracted for by proprietors of oil mills, who furnish seed again free to planters, generally with stipulations restricting the amount to be sown per acre. This causes the plants to grow stocky, and branch out near the ground, making the fibre coarse and variable, weak and brittle, and worthless for the manufacture of any but the very coarsest fabrics. Being grown for the seed alone, the object of the oil-makers is to get the largest amount for a given quantity distributed, which they obtain by this course, while the farmer, who burns or throws out the remainder of the plant to decay, has no interest in preventing this deterioration of the fibre.

This explanation is simple justice to western cultivators, whose knowledge of the culture seems impugned in the transactions of the Rhode Island Society for the Encouragement of Domestic Industry, in which, after a comparison of western and Canadian flax, it is said “that any failure to work western flax will be traceable to a want of knowledge on the part of the producer of the best modes of sowing, reaping, and curing it.” In the west, flax is grown for its seed; in Canada, for fibre mainly, together with seed; and to these facts, the result of a definite purpose, and not to any lack of knowledge on the part either of Canadian or western farmers, the difference in the plant is due. If flax-growers in Ohio or Indiana should now desire to turn their attention to lint as well as seed, they will, of course, seek a change of seed, instead of using that which has attained, by repeated thin sowing, a fixed character for stocky, branching growth.

In growing flax for the seed and lint, from one bushel to a bushel and a half is the average sown in New York and other States producing lint. Two bushels will give finer fibre. In Belgium and in Russia, where the finest linens are produced, from two to four bushels are put in. Rich soils require less than poor ones. Thick sowing diminishes the branches; the fewer and higher upon the stalk the branches are the finer the fibre. The sowing should be as even as possible, and the ground levelled with a roller if it is designed to cut with a reaper. In prairie soils some prefer to cover with a roller. Heavy crops are reported grown from seed washed into the soil by the rain. The usual mode of covering has been with brush or a light harrow.

The Belgians, who cultivate with great skill and weed very carefully, obtain a double crop by sowing white carrots, which grow finely after the flax is removed. The crop itself is a double product, yielding adequate returns for cultivation in its seed, and duplicating them in its fibre.

When the lower leaves begin to fall, and the seed hardens and turns brown, and the stalks assume a yellowish tinge, is the time to harvest. It has usually been pulled, but if grown very extensively in this country it must be cut with the reaper, to which course there are two objections: the loss of fibre and injury to its working qualities, and the gathering of weeds with the flax." Use the roller in preparing the ground, allow no weeds, and cut low in harvesting, and these objections will disappear. It should be carefully cut, partially dried, removed in straight gavels, bound in small bundles, and stacked as soon as practicable, to prevent injury from rains and insects, and then housed early.  If harvest-rotted, ot left to cure in the swath, the fibre is inferior in color and deficient in strength and fineness. For flax-cotton it may be cut with a mower.

The seed is removed by various processes—by tramping the straw with horses moving in a circle; by the use of the cylinder of a threshing-machine; by drawing through a hatchel; by rollers operating by horse-power; by threshing with flails, or by whipping over a smooth stone or board.

There are two modes. Water-rotting is essential for the finest fibre. The process consists in fermentation, by soaking in water till the gluten is dissolved that holds together the fibres, and till the woody core or “boon" is decomposed, so that the brake or hatchel can detach it in fragments called “shives,” leaving the lift ready for manufacture. Soft, river water is best. The time depends upon the ripeness of the plant, and perhaps other circumstances; sometimes five days, sometimes ten, and occasionally even twenty and thirty. It should be watched, and taken from the water as soon as the lint will separate from the woody part, and the harl or cuticle will peel easily from the lint.

Dew-rotting is generally practiced in this country. About the 1st of October spread a ton of straw evenly upon an acre of moist meadow, the bundles a foot apart, in straight rows; turning carefully by inserting a pole under the straw, and opening with a fork if it rots unevenly. The time varies with the condition of the straw and the state of the weather; with good weather, from one to two weeks will suffice; in dry weather it takes much longer.

Twenty bushels of seed and three tons of straw have been obtained by heavy seeding. Six hundred pounds of fibre and sixteen bushels of seed are regarded as large crops. In the west from eight to twenty bushels of seed are obtained.  A correspondent gives nearly five hundred pounds of lint as the average, per acre, produced by one farmer in Rensselaer county, New York; while the general average of the county for thirty years is stated, by Mr. William Newcomb, not to exceed two hundred and fifty pounds.

At its present price—twenty-five cents per pound when reduced to lint, and three to five dollars per bushel for seed—it is an exceedingly profitable crop.  At ordinary prices, when grown by farmers skilled in culture and preparation for manufacture, it “pays” far better than wheat and oats. It is claimed in the west that the seed alone furnishes a better average profit than wheat.

Mr. William McMillan, a purchaser of flax fibre, residing in Cambridge, Washington county, New York—a locality in which the flax crop is very prominent—writes that flax-growers in his vicinity sow a bushel per acre; when ripe, pull and set in shock till dry; that the seed is taken off by machinery made for the purpose, and that it is then dew-rotted and sold at $20 to $30 per ton usually, but at twice as much the present year. The mill for dressing consists of a machine for breaking, and dressing boards and knives for taking out the shives. In the condition in which it is then found, it is purchased for the manufacture of twines, crash, shoe thread, and burlap.  It is held that this crop is worth, at former average prices, from $10 to $15 per acre more than ordinary farm products.

Mr. Harvey Wilcox, of Greenwich, Washington county, New York, informs this department that in his vicinity flax is pulled by hand; that machines for pulling have been used, but are generally discarded, because they pull weeds with the flax; when dry, the seed is whipped off by hand, or with rollers on two horizontal shafts, driven by horse-power; three sets of knives and shaft cost about $100; two kinds of brakes are in use—the old style costing $75, and that of Sanford & Mallory costing $355, the latter effecting a saving over the other of fifteen to thirty per cent. of lint.  After breaking, the dressing is done by an apparatus consisting of knives, which are round or blunt om the edge, set in a circle or on a horizontal shaft, and revolving close to an upright board in which is a notch cut to feed in the flax. It is the usual custom of millers to buy flax in the field after it is pulled. Some rot, dress, and sell it by the hundred. Troy and Cambridge ave their markets, and agents of Massachusetts mills are also buyers. It now produces from $60 to $100 per acre for the crop. Oats yield $15 to $20.

   “Are the mills worked by "water or horse-power?"
   “With us they are worked by water. There would be no difficulty in running them by horse-power, as no great amount of force is required to work them.”
   “What is their cost?”
   “This depends somewhat upon the. size and quality of the buildings to be erected. A plain and commodious barn-like building is all that is necessary. After the building is complete, and a dam for furnishing the water-power is built, I think the cost of putting in machinery sufficient for a single shaft, with four sets of blades or knives, including, also, the water-wheel complete for running, would not exceed two hundred and fifty dollars; but several shafts may be erected, with a trifling additional outlay, for each in the same building. When business will warrant it, this is more economical than to erect other buildings and fixtures. In the above estimate should be understood as including the old-fashioned brake, in contradistinction to a new invention manufactured in New York city, at §355. It nearly cleans the fibre of shives by the single process of breaking, and, though the flax must atter- wards be submitted to the process of swingling, there is a sufficient saving in lint to pay for the new machine in a short time.”
   "Is the flax merely ‘broken’ by them, or is it merely ‘dressed,’ i.e., freed from the ‘shives?’ "
   "It is both broken and freed from the shives.”
   "Do the owners of mills purchase the flax, or do they work it on shares for a stipulated price?”
   “They both purchase the flax and work it for a stipulated price, as they can best agree with the grower of the crop. I do not know of any working the crop on shares. The owners of mills usually prefer to purchase the crop in the field, after it is harvested or pulled, at so much per acre; and previous to this year the average price per acre has ranged from thirty to thirty-five dollars. If the owners of the crop choose to get off the seed and rot the straw themselves, the mill-owners will then purchase the rotted straw at a price, per ton, heretofore twenty-five to thirty dollars; or they will dress the flax for two dollars and fifty cents per hundred weight, and also sell the lint without charging commission, if the owner prefers.  Aside from the chance of making larger profits, the mill-owner prefers to purchase the crop in the field and rot it himself, presuming, with good reason, that in the latter case the straw will reach his mill in better average condition than if the rotting process is subject to the carelessness or caprice of a number of individuals, many of whom have but limited experience in the business. The flax is, with us, always dew-rotted.”
   “What is the profit of growing flax in comparison with other crops?”
   “The cost of growing, harvesting, and rotting an acre of flax, at the ordinary price of seed, (say, $3 50 per bushel, the present price,) should not exceed twelve dollars per acre, exclusive of interest on the cost ofp land.
   "Now, one ton of rotted straw, with two bushels of seed, is a low acreable average; and such an acre now readily sells at $60 for the straw, and $35 ($3 50 per bushel) for the seed, or $95 for the whole. Although these are double the ordinary prices, a much lower rate would leave a fair margin for profit, as compared with any of our staple crops; but as the times are, the price is steadily advancing.
   “There are some drawbacks to a very extensive cultivation of this crop, as, for instance, the great amount of manual labor that would be required to harvest it, for the want of a suitable machine to pull the flax, and also the general belief that it is a very exhausting crop. There is no doubt that any farmer may, with good management, cultivate a few acres with a promise of a fair remuneration.”
   "Where is the market?"
   “Boston, I think, mainly. The increased demand for textile materials will open other markets.  Even now the refuse or poorer qualities of tow, (no inconsiderable item,) find a ready sale at the paper manufactories.”

In the good old days, not, indeed, of primitive fig leaves, but of linen aprons fabricated by the fair hands that joined in loving embrace the hard palms of our revolutionary fathers, domestic industry sought to promote alike the comfort of the family and the wealth of the State, giving thus to the children a bright example of two eminent virtues of a free people—industry and loyalty.

The spinning wheel was then to be found in every house; its sweet music was for ennui a preventive better than a cure, and for restive infancy a lullaby only less effective than the human voice. Health waited on the gentle exercise with its roses, and thrift from its cornucopia strewed with plenty the pathway of industry.

Garments like gossamer for blooming beauty, and breeches of tow for burly toilers; dresses for the night and clothing for the day; all covering of the person, from the skilfully wrought socks, for the protection of the “sole of the foot,” to the netted nightcap for the "crown of the head;" serviceable diaper and delicate handkerchiefs; clothing for the cradle and habiliments of the grave; all were products, to a greater or less extent, of flax and of home manufacture.

But change came. The spinning wheel was set aside; its hum became a fading echo of the past. Wealth increased; silks and satins figured in importations, and domestic linens were discarded.

A potent influence in this change was the advent of cotton, with the gin of Whitney, and the jenny of Arkwright. Indeed, this pressure of cotton competition may be said to have killed the flax manufacture; but the force of this pressure is at present relieved, and skill and invention are fast removing the obstacles fo the production of flax as a successful competitor of cotton in its season of greatest abundance and cheapness.

It is not to be expected that domestic spinning and weaving of linen will again prevail, nor is it to be desired, if improved machinery can accomplish results never before fully attained, with a celerity unapproachable in simple home industries, though a mine of wealth may yet be found, for the homes of the great masses living by their labor, in some of the various processes of the flax manufacture.

For many of the purposes of manufacturing, flax is superior to cotton; it is stronger and more durable. In fabrics made of wool, in part, the fibres receive the dye better and mix more uniformly. It is better than cotton for summer cloths, table linens, duck, drillings, bags, and many other goods; it is superior for cordage and all sorts of twine. The seed is a paying crop, even if the fibre is not saved; besides the oil, the oil-cake is in great demand for fattening stock, and is worth almost its cost for manure alone. Large quantities of tow are now used for paper manufacturing in the present dearth of paper stock.

The growing of flax commenced in New England with its first settlement. As early as 1640 the Massachusetts Assembly issued an order inquiring “what men and women are skilful in the breaking, spinning, weaving, what means for the providing of wheels,” and also “what course may be taken for teaching the boys and girls the spinning of yarn.”

In the “New Netherlands” the Dutch women, who had long excelled in this manufacture, manifested a just pride in their display of “ample stores of strong, smooth, and nicely bleached home-made linen, and stockings of blue, red, and green worsted.”

In 1719 an immigration of Scotch Irish from Londonderry, Ireland, settling in a township which they named Londonderry, and in other towns in New Hampshire, greatly improved the current colonial knowledge and skill in flax culture and manufacture.

Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and other States, encouraged the growth of flax and manufacture of linen by legislative enactment and by personal effort, until the big wheel and the little wheel were almost as common a household treasure as in New York and New England.

In 1752 Dr. Franklin stated, before the British House of Commons, that ten thousand hogsheads of flaxseed had that year been exported from Philadelphia.  In those days the Pennsylvania farmers were supposed to make nine-tenths of all their wearing apparel from the hemp, flax, and wool of their farms.

The great obstacle to the enormously extended production of flax is the expense of its preparation for spinning. This difficulty, now sought to be obviated both for the production of lint .and of flax-cotton, is twofold—the want of a cheap and perfect solvent of the cement which binds in a mass the ultimate fibre, and of a machine to separate perfectly, at one operation, the fibre from the woody core.

The old process of breaking, scutching, and hatchelling, by the rude machines of our fathers, is too well known to require description. "The old brake has been superseded by numerous improvements, consisting generally of an adaptation of fluted rollers, which so break the woody core or “boon” as to make an easy separation of the broken fragments or “shives,” leaving the tough fibre finely subdivided, and ready for the regular linen manufacture.

“The flax, being cut in lengths of ten or twelve inches, is arranged in flat layers called stricks, the fibres parallel and ending together. Each of these is held by two strips of wood clamped together across its middle, or sometimes across one end. They are placed around a revolving within which another drum, armed with teeth, rapidly revolves in a contrary direction, and combs tho flax as tho ends fall among the teeth. Much ingenuity is displayed in the modifications of this machinery, and also of a preparatory machine for dividing the fibres into equal lengths and sorting the lower ends, the middles, and the upper ends, each by themselves. The stricks, when hatchelled; are assorted according to the fineness of the fibres, those made of the lower ends being the coarsest; the divisions, however, being much more minute than those of each fibre into three lengths. The next operation, preparatory to spinning, is to lay the fibres upon a feeding-cloth, each successive wisp overtopping half way the one preceding it. The feeding-cloth conveys them to rollers, between which they are flattened and held back as a second pair, more rapidly revolving, seizes the part in advance and draws out the flax. These tapes, thus formed, are then joined together and slightly twisted.”

An improvement known as Schenck’s process, patented in 1846, has been regarded as a valuable expedient in the preparation of fibre, but it does not remove the whole difficulty. It consists merely in steeping the flax stems in warm water, heated artificially to the temperature best suited to fermentation, which is from 80° to 90°. The result of this bath, of 70 to 90 hours, is an increased percentage of fibre obtained, increased fineness, and enhanced spinning qualities.

The Dutch have long had a process in which the linen is boiled in a weak lye, and subsequently treated with sour buttermilk, to aid in removing alkali and earthy impurities.

The method of M. Claussen for making flax-cotton (which had been made by a process in some degree analogous many years ago) consists, first, in boiling the cut and crushed stems in a dilute solution of caustic soda. The fibre is then immersed in a bath of dilute sulphuric acid, and boiled an hour. Afterwards it remains an hour in a solution of carbonate of soda, followed by a half hour’s bath in a weak solution of sulphuric acid. The effect of this combination of chemical agents is to explode the fibre, making a product resembling cotton.

Coming down to the present effort of our inventors and manufacturers to facilitate and cheapen prepared flax fibre, it is proper to say that important inventions are now in process of development.  In the last year or two invention has-accomplished much in certain directions. Sanford & Mallory, of New York, have taken the lead in brakes, patents having been issued in 1862 for “breaking and cleaving,” "dressing,” “scutching and cleaning,” and “separating fibres from plants.” One patent for dressing has been issued to G.F. Schaffer; one for “cleaning and dressing” to J. E. Crowell; one for the manufacture of flax-cotton to J. P. Comly, of Dayton, Ohio. A "hemp brake” has been patented to Thomas H. Murphy. In April of the present year, (1863,) Sanford & Mallory patented another machine for breaking flax and hemp. Patents have also been granted for “machinery for separating the fibres of tropical plants” to Edward Juanes y Patrullo, of New York. This is a machine for separating the fibres of the Agave Americana, by a process of tearing and scraping, at a high velocity, the leaves of that plant.

Before proceeding to a cursory examination of the present condition of our flax manufactures, let their paucity and comparative poverty be manifest from an exhibit of the amount of flax fibre on hand in 1860. The total home product in 1859 was but 3,783,079 pounds, equivalent to 94,576 bales of cotton; but there was an import from Great Britain amounting to 105,487 pounds. As our total import from Great Britain, Holland, and Russia was $213,687, the aggregate amount must have been nearly a million and a half of pounds. Thus the total manufacture may have been 5,000,000 pounds, or one and a third per cent. of the amount of our cotton manufactures.

Smith, Dove & Co., at Andover, Massachusetts, use 700 tons annually, mostly of Irish, Dutch, and Archangel flax, for shoe thread and sewing twines.  For coarse yarns they use the American. They say: “Experience in the cultivation of the plant and its preparation for the market, and the improvements in the machinery for the manufacture of flax goods, may in process of time enable us to produce goods of fine quality from American flax, Heretofore, the chief obstacle to the growing of flax in the United States has been the high price of labor, which has prevented the farmers going into it to any extent, except for the seed, the preparation of the lint for the market being the part in which the labor is most expénsive.”

Several other small establishments, producing flax cordage, are reported in the census schedules, in Massachusetts, giving a total product in 1859 of nearly $40,000, in addition to $213,900, the value of goods made by Smith, Dove, & Co.

Linen goods are manufactured to a very limited extent, mainly in Massachusetts, by the following companies: Fall River Linen Company, making use of 350 tons of flax and hemp, producing a product valued at $300,000; Hampden Tax and Hemp Mills, using 90,000 pounds flax, (300,000 pounds hemp and 120,000 pounds cotton,) producing (of flax simply) $18,000; A. H. Stevens, of Weston, 300 tons, $150,000.

The preparation of flax fibre for spinning on cotton machinery has long been an object of inquiry. Experiments m that direction were made in Europe long before Claussen’s discoveries. Investigations made in Pennsylvania twenty years ago established the fact that flax may be cradled as well as pulled, and that it can be manufactured without rotting, thus saving time and labor, avoiding the liability of mildewing and staining the fibre, economizing the process of bleaching, and obtaining a stronger material than is produced by the old processes. These improvements were effected by a machine invented by Sands Olcott, in 1840. His investigations were successfully continued during 1841 and 1842, and public lectures were delivered in Philadelphia, eliciting a good degree of public inquiry and discussion, and showing the practicability of producing fibre ready for carding at eight cents per pound. The death of Olcott put a period to these operations, so successfully commenced; but the person who built his machinery, and was particularly conversant with his operations, is still living, and may assist essentially in the solution of the flax-cotton problem.  It is believed that Olcott made further progress than recent experimenters have as yet reached, and that some of the most promising machines of recent introduction embody the principle, more fully developed, in his invention.

Flax-cotton is now produced, of a quality not yet equal to the requirements of a perfected art, but suited to certain valuable uses, in various places.  Among the experimenters and manufacturers are the Rhode Island Society for the Promotion of Domestic Industry; the Flax-Cotton Company, at Lockport, New York; Mr. Fletcher, of Oswego, New York; Mr. Beach, of Penn Yan, New York; Stephen Randall, of Centreville, Rhode Island; Robert and Geo. C. Davies, of Cincinnati, Ohio; and O.S. Leavitt, of Louisville.

Hon. Charles Jackson, of Providence, Rhode Island, a gentleman of profound knowledge of American manufactures, whose efforts have been unremitting and influential in securing the aid of the government to proposed experiments in perfecting cottonized flax, says, in a lefter to this department, that “the government will surely be disappointed in its receipts under the tax bill, unless the mills can continue production.” Referring to the immense waste of flax straw in the west, he adopts the assertion “that more than a hundred thousand bales of flax, from one district in the west of a hundred miles square, could be furnished now, if the preparatory machinery could be put in operation.”—(See article on Flax-Cotton.)

Hon. W. R. Staples, Secretary of the Rhode Island Society for the Encouragement of Domestic Industry, reports that in the prosecution of experiments it was found difficult to obtain a few pounds of straw, and even that “had been harvested more than twenty years ago.” He alludes to a jealousy among the inventors, which obstructs united effort in the work of successful experiment, and to their disposition “to realize,” when a product is obtained that will sell; either to be mixed with wool or spun into coarse fabrics. “One experimenter fails,” he suggests, “in making his fibres of an equal length, one in clearing the fibre of the shive, one in getting a sufficient fineness, and so all are discouraged; whereas it would seem to need little more than united effort to bring the product to perfection.”

There is naturally a disposition on the part of some manufacturers to obtain a monopoly of the benefits derivable from improvements, while societies, the manufacturing interest generally, and the best interests of the country, demand governmental aid and free competition in discovery, with open enjoyment of its results.

Geo. C. Davies, of Cincinnati, Ohio, sends to this department specimens of “flax wool,” or “erolin,” made from the coarse flax straw of the west. It is a “fair" article, less fine than New York specimens, but valuable, when mixed with wool or cotton, as a cheap textile. It is made from tow, produced from straw at three cents per pound, at a good profit; two pounds of this tow producing one of flax-cotton, at a cost of one cent for labor, making a total cost of seven cents per pound. He is using about a ton of the raw material daily.

Stephen M. Allen, of Massachusetts, has in operation machines for the manufacture of a product which he calls "fibrilia,” which can be spun and woven on cotton machinery.” He claims to be able, with machinery in process of construction, to separate the fibre entirely by mechanical means alone. By his process “the flax or hemp straw is mown or cradled like grain, and is cured like hay, after which the seed is threshed out in the ordinary way. It is then passed through the brake, which takes 1,400 pounds of shives out of every 2,000 pounds of straw, and the fibre is then steeped in the retort with warm water at different temperatures, which dissolves the gluten in the fibre, after which it is rinsed or washed before coming up to the boiling point. It is then dried and run through the stranding machine, to be-followed by carding, spinning, &c., on the short-stapled machinery. If it needs bleaching or coloring, it may be done in the retort at first before removing.”

A committee of the Rhode Island Society for the Encouragement of Domestic Industry reported, in October, 1861, upon samples of flax-cotton submitted for premiums, that while none of the contributors were entitled to the reward offered, “the encouragements for ultimate success are too strong to allow the investigation to rest here.”  From the investigations since made, the manufacturers of Rhode Island are confident that such success will be attained, and a product obtained that will compare favorably in price with cotton in ordinary times.

1. Breaking, by passing through revolving fluted rollers.
2. Dusting, by passing through a machine similar to the “willow” of the cotton manufacturers.
3. Scutching.
4. Combing, by a process like that for preparing worsted yarn.
5. Dusting again.
6. Steeping the fibre twenty-four hours in tepid water.
7. Boiling in soap and soda ash (three pounds of the latter per one hundred pounds of fibre) for eight to twelve hours.
8. Immersing in chlorine for two hours or more, as necessary for bleaching.
9. Immersing in sulphuric acid for two hours, (of one degree of strength.)
10. Dipping in a solution of alum, borax, and salt.
11. Washing in distilled water with a little sal soda.
12. Drying by heat from steam pipes.
13. The fibre is passed through a lapper.
14. Carded on machines similar to wool cards.
15. Passed through a railway head with rotary gills.
16. Passed through a drawing frame.

The loss in passing through the breaker is estimated at thirty per cent.; through the duster, thirty per cent. more; in scutching, five per cent. The entire loss, from straw to cottonized flax, seventy-five per cent.

The cost of straw is estimated at $10 per ton green; rotted, $12 to $15 per ton; cost of labor, three and a third cents per pound; cost of rotted flax, three cents; total cost, six and a third cents per pound.

Such are some of the indices of progress in the effort towards the substitution of flax for cotton, to be worked upon cotton machinery without material alteration. They mark what it is confidently hoped will prove a new era in the history of textile fabrics. The government has appropriated $20,000 to this Department, (through the persistent and intelligent efforts of Hon. H. B. Anthony, senator from Rhode Island,) to be used in continuing these investigations and perfecting the process already half successful. Should these efforts be crowned with success, Congress, the Department, the manufacturing interest, farmers, and the world at large will have cause for hearty congratulation, and reasonable excuse for the gratification of a proper pride.