XII NOTES BY THE EDITOR 



there is said to exceed 40,000 tons. As the source of supply of jute, 

 viz., India, is said to be inexhaustible, every new use that it can be 

 put to positively increases the world's textile resources. 



Flax and Flax Cotton. Flax, for the last few years, has been an 

 anomaly in political economy, and an exception to the generally-re- 

 ceived laws of supply and demand. Notwithstanding a continually 

 augmenting price, and the efforts of governments, societies, and pub- 

 lic-spirited individuals to stimulate its cultivation by premiums, the 

 European production *bf flax (and we think we may also say the 

 American) remains stationary, if it does not decrease. The reasons 

 for this state of things are probably these : 



First; Flax is a troublesome and vexations crop to raise. The 

 tune which elapses between the sowing of the seed and the sale of the 

 product if that product be fibre is longer than is required for any 

 other crop. The plant cannot be made to yield profitably both seed 

 and fibre. If the seed is allowed to ripen, the fibre becomes impaired. 

 If the fibre is the main object to be attended to, the crop must be 

 gathered before the seed is matured. Europe sows her flax fields to- 

 day, to a great degree, with American seed, obtained from plants 

 which yielded little or no fibre. Flax is to the soil one of the most 

 exhausting crops that can be cultivated. If fibre of fine quality and 

 high price is desired, the crop must be carefully weeded and thinned 

 out 1 by hand labor, a work tedious, and in America expensive. 



Secondly ; Although the demand for flax is great and constant, it is 

 not a demand for the raw, agricultural product, i. e., the stalk, but 

 for a manufactured material, i. e., the dressed fibre. Thus the farmer 

 who raises, must, to sell, become to a certain extent a manufacturer. 

 The first operation in this manufacturing process, that of " retting," 

 or " rotting," is objectionable. It is a process of slow vegetable decom- 

 position ; unhealthy, and tending to produce malaria, especially where 

 the result is effected by steeping the flax in pools or ponds of water. 

 But some may say that these old processes have been obviated by 

 new methods involving the use of steam, hot water, or chemical 

 agents. This is a mistake. We state, on the authority of one of the 

 leading scientific journals of Great Britain, that all the recent Euro- 

 pean experimentation on the subject has resulted in failure, and that 

 there is everywhere a general return to the old process of " dew " and 



" water retting.' 



But the retting, however conducted, still leaves a sufficient quan- 

 tity of gum in the straw to render the removal of the woody part, or 

 boon, without injury to the fibre, a rather difficult process. No me- 



