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*'in the year, this can be accomplished as usual by spreading on grass 

 "land in the open air. During winter, however, it is necessary to find 

 "other means of drying. A shed has, therefore, been erected, commu- 

 "nicating by doors, with the vat house, filled with ranges of shelves, 

 "composed simply of railings of lath wood in five or six tiers. The flax 

 "is spread lightly along these shelves by women, and the house is heat- 

 "edby steam-pipes. This house is capable of drying the full of one 

 "vat per diem. The flax when dried is made up in small beets or hand- 

 "fuls, of a size suited for feeding into the breaking rollers of the mill. 



"About ten vats per week can be steeped in this establishment, say 

 " twenty tons weight of straw, and producing, say two-and-a-half to three 

 **tons of fibre. Thus, in one year, such an establishment would be 

 "capable of turning out 120 to 150 tons of flax for market, being the 

 *' produce of 400 to 500 statute acres. The fuel used for the boilers is 

 "principally 'showes,' with a small quantity of turf. Mr. Bernard esti- 

 " mates the cost of steepnig, drying, heating, and scutching the flax, at 

 *'£10 to j£ll per ton, which is £3 per statute acre. Subtracting say 

 " lOd. per stone, or 6s. per cwt. for scutching, the cost of steeping and 

 "drying would thus appear to be about 24s. per acre, — a sum certainly 

 "less than the usual estimates of these operations, as commonly per- 

 " formed by farm labor." 



Another method has lately attracted much attention, being supposed 

 by Mr. Claussen, the inventor, and the public generally, to be new. Its 

 intention is to do away with the retting or fermenting process now in use, 

 by substituting a direct chemical action of c^ssolving the substances that 

 unite the fibres to the wood and to each other. This he endeavors to 

 effect by means of a strong caustic alkaline solution, followed by a slight 

 acidulous mixture. After this, he proposes to prepare the fibre for mix- 

 ing with cotton, &c., by cutting it into short lengths, and saturating it 

 with a solution of bi-carbonate of soda ; it is then taken out and immers- 

 ed in dilute sulphuric acid. The action of the acid on the soda contain- 

 ed in the tubes liberates the carbonic acid, the expansive power of which, 

 causes the fibres to split into the proper degree of fineness. The idea of 

 producing Flax Cotton from ordinary Flax, Hemp, and Tow, is by no 

 means new ; a description of a process for eff"ecting this having been pub- 

 lished in the Swedish Transactions for 1747, and the subject has attract- 

 ed much attention in Germany from time to time. Somewhat later, 

 BerthoUet, in his Book on Dyeing, describes a process very similar to 



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