( 4"'i ) 



a pre\iou8 rotting. When using fresh water it proved desirable 

 after every 24 hours to repeat the refreshing, but when good rotting- 

 water could be had a second renewing was not required, good 

 rotting-water containing already a sutTicient accumulation of G. pec- 

 tinovorum. 



By this treatment, too, which may be called the "decanting method", 

 excellent rotted samples were produced in 27, or 3 days. It even 

 seems that it should be preferred to the "current method", because 

 by decanting the concentrated rotting-water will be enabled more 

 completely to flow off from the narrow interspaces of the ilax-stalks 

 than will be possible wdien replacing it by slowly streaming pure 

 water. For the same reason the aeration must needs be more com- 

 plete anywhere in the sheaves by "decanting" than by "streaming." 



On account of these experiences tiiere is no doubt but any other 

 method of water supply which can give rise to a sufïicient extraction 

 and aeration, can replace the "streaming" and the "decanting method", 

 if only care be taken during the rotting not to injure the delicate 

 and easily bruised flax-stalks. 



Here once more it may be observed, that although G. pectinovorum 

 belongs to the so-called obligative anaerobic bacteria, the strong 

 aeration, described above, should be pronounced decidedly favorable 

 to this bacterium. This is, however, quite in accordance with the 

 experience acquired for all other well-observed anaerobes. Hence, 

 it may be considered as a truth, confirmed by each subsequent 

 research, that anaerobes, in the strict sense of the word, do not 

 exist, and that the term "niicroaerophily" more precisely denotes 

 the relation between such organisms and free oxygen, than the term 

 "anaerobes". 



8. Application of the current experiment for practical rotting ^). 



Practical rotting has until now been managed in a very primitive 

 way. Even at the Leie, near Courtray, from whence the best flax-fibre 

 comes to the market, e\en the superficial obser^'eI■ is struck b}' the 

 numerous and great deficiencies existing there. 



1) By "vat-rotting", the bleaching of the flax on tlie field through light, so 

 essential in "white rotting", is excluded. In the flax-rotting establishments to come, 

 it will therefore be necessary to make the rotting be followed by a chemical 

 bleaching process. Experiments have shown that ozon or hydrogen-superoxide may 

 be used to this end Whether hypochlorites ("electrical bleaching") will also prove 

 applicable without weakening the fibres, will have to be made out by dynamometrical 

 estimations. Vat-rotting will also call attention to good drying-apparatus and, no 

 doubt, to other troublesome problems, which, completely to solve, will require 

 surely much time and many an industrial effort. 



