278 REPORT—1852. 
cate covering of epidermis. By rubbing a piece of dried flax-straw between 
the fingers, the woody central part and delicate epidermis can be readily 
broken to pieces, while the tough fibres of the bast-cells will be found to re- 
main but little injured. Those tough fibres, which are capable of being split 
into filaments of extreme delicacy, constitute the raw material of our greatest 
national manufacture. In the country farm-houses and manufacturing towns 
of Ulster, they afford employment to thousands of our people, and are made 
to assume almost innumerable forms. They are moulded into the costly lace 
and beautiful cambric. They cover our tables, and supply us with “fine 
linen,” equal to that which was once the pride of Egypt. The coarser fibres 
give stout sails to our ships, and even the refuse rejected by the spinner is 
worked up into a cheap and substantial material for covering our farm-houses, 
while the sweepings of the Belfast warehouses are sold to the paper-makers 
of England, and used to produce the broad sheets upon which the Times 
and Morning Chronicle newspapers are printed. 
To separate this invaluable fibre from the worthless parts connected with 
it is the first step in its preparation for the spinner. Numerous plans have 
been proposed for this purpose, both by scientific and practical men. The 
examination of the plant shows us that its parts are bound together by gummy 
and resinous substances, and that vegetable jelly fills its cells. The separa- 
tion of the fibre, therefore, merely by mechanical means, as might be expected, 
cannot be perfectly accomplished; yet at various times patents have been 
taken out for the application of machinery for this purpose; and in 1815 the 
Linen Board expended £6000 in the attempt to introduce into Ireland a ma- 
chine which had been invented by a Mr. Lee. One of those machines was 
lately sold as lumber at the White Linen Hall in this town. In other 
countries the dry preparation has also been tried, and though it has been 
found capable of producing a coarse, discoloured fibre, adapted for inferior 
fabrics, such as bagging, &c., yet it has been nearly discontinued. The 
specimens on the table will serve to illustrate the results of this method of 
treatment, as pursued in the jail at Cork, where it serves to give useful 
employment to the prisoners. 
From the earliest times only one method has been found capable of yielding 
the textile material in a condition adapted for every purpose, and possessing 
all the qualities demanded by the spinner, viz. the decomposition, by the 
process of fermentation, of the adhesive substances which connect together 
the bast fibres and the ligneous tissues of the straw. It is by this pro- 
cess, variously modified in the arrangements for conducting it, that nearly all 
the fibre produced in the great flax-growing countries of Europe is at present 
prepared. In many parts of Germany the fermentation is induced by ex- 
posing the flax, spread in the fields, to the influence of the air and moisture ; 
while in Belgium, which is justly regarded as the model country for flax 
management, the practice of enclosing the straw in wooden frames, and im- 
mersing it in the waters of rivers until the necessary changes are produced, 
is in many places adopted and found to yield fibre of superior quality. 
In Ireland, at the present time, two modifications of the system of fermenta- 
tion are in use—one of which consists in steeping the straw in pools of water 
in the open air at ordinary temperatures, while, according to the other method, 
the steeping is transferred from the farm to the factory, and the fermentation 
accelerated by employing water maintained at an elevated temperature. The 
former method of steeping has prevailed in this country and in other parts of 
Europe to some extent from the earliest times; and though it has been 
asserted by some writers, without, however, any authority for the statement, 
that the ancient inhabitants of this island prepared the flax in the same rude 
