22 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



in a nutshell. The scheme has already been tested in practice with 

 favorable results, but the farmers in any community can do little 

 until capital is more generally interested. 



This brings up an important point and presents another obstacle, 

 for great harm has been done to all new fiber industries in recent 



years by the misdirected 

 efforts of some professional 

 promoters. In certain in- 

 stances the organized fiber 

 companies have been mere 

 stock - jobbing concerns. 

 They have had their rise 

 and fall, men with idle 

 money have burned their 

 fingers, and the particular 

 industry has received a 

 " black eye." 



The story of Govern- 

 ment effort toward the es- 

 tablishment of the flax in- 

 dustry need not be told 

 here; there has been wide- 

 spread prejudice to over- 

 come, with the opposition 

 of the importers, discour- 

 agements to be studied and 

 explained, the unvarnished 

 truth to be told, and prac- 

 tical and authoritative in- 

 formation to be given to 

 all who may seek it. The 

 literature of the subject 

 has been disseminated by thousands of copies, and new editions are 

 being ordered. 



As to the results: Superior flax has been produced in this country 

 in limited quantities since the work began, and through extended 

 field experiments flax regions have been discovered that are thought 

 to equal the best flax centers of Europe. The department experi- 

 ments in the Puget Sound region of "Washington have demonstrated 

 that we possess in that State a climate and soil that bid fair to rival 

 the celebrated flax region of Courtrai, and from these experiments 

 scutched flax has been produced that is valued by manufacturers in 

 Ireland at three hundred and fifty dollars per ton, and hackled flax 

 worth five hundred dollars per ton. Much lias been done, but a great 



California Hkmp. 



