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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



these fibers), could it be brought about, would mean an advantage 

 of at least three million dollars to our farmers. Yet in consider- 

 ing such a desirable change we are confronted with two questions: 

 Is it possible to compete with foreign jute? and can prejudice be 

 overcome? For it is true that there are, even among farmers, those 

 who would hesitate to buy hemp bagging at the same price as jute 

 bagging because it was not the thing they were familiar with. But 



Cabbage Palmetto in Florida. 



some of them will buy inferior jute twine, colored to resemble hemp, 

 at the price of hemp, and never question the fraud. 



Our farmers waste the fibrous straw produced on the million acres 

 of flax grown for seed. It has little value, it is true, for the produc- 

 tion of good spinning flax, yet by modifying present methods of 

 culture, salable fiber can be produced and the seed saved as well, 

 giving two paying crops from the same harvest where now the flax- 

 seed grower secures but one. 



