TEGETABLE FIBERS. 577 



ments for those ai-ticles. there will he a large and increaaiTisr domand for spinning into 

 yarns, for fiuc twines for binding grain, and I believe also for crash towolings and 

 fabrics of varions kinds. The agriculturist who anticipates this demand by growing 

 the finer qualities of hemp, and preparing it with care for market, can commatid a re- 

 munerative price for this product. 



To return to flax again, it is TTorth w^liile to encourage its cultivation 

 from its competition with other crops. If there are 400,000 acres in flax, 

 if it were put in wheat instead, it would yield five to six million bushels 

 and aid in reducing the price of wheat. If not in flax it would compete 

 with the staple products and reduce the price of them. The seed pro- 

 duced in the five states of Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Kansas 

 in 1869 was about a million and a quarter bushels. It is probable that 

 the amount of seed produced in 1878 was not far from three millions in all. 



While touching upon the wheat question, let me digress a little : It 

 has been the study of political economists and protectionists for long 

 years how to frame tarifl' laws to enable successful competition with the 

 Old World, and now we are confronted with the spectacle of a people 

 forced to compete with themselves, or to put it more [)lainly, the older 

 sections of the country are unable to compete with other sections where 

 farming is conducted upon high-pressare principles. The Western capi- 

 talist, with his broad acres stretching away to the sunset, with his gang- 

 plows, headers, and steam-thrashers, is enabled to grow wheat and make 

 money out of it at prices which are discouraging to the Eastern agricult- 

 mist, or even the Western smaU farmer. We cannot all grow wheat, 

 Sheep and cattle even can be more profitably produced in the fertile val- 

 leys of the far West, and a "diversified agriculture," with too many 

 farmers, means growing what everybody else is growing at bottom prices. 

 But diversified agriculture should mean something else. Beet-sugar 

 and com or sorghum sugar are no less elements of national wealth be- 

 cause furnishing a home supply of a product that would otherwise have 

 to be imported, than are flax, hemp, or ramie even. Fiber cultivation 

 has perhaps a greater claim, because it is not a new industry, or a for- 

 eign industry to be introduced into the country. It is an industry native 

 to the soil, so to speak, that has only languished from neglect, a neglect 

 that perhaps the national government is to a certain degree responsible. 



If the eastern and middle sections of the country cannot compete with 

 the large wheat farmers of the far West in producing grain, they can at 

 least do something towards preventing importation of vegetable fiber 

 by turning their attention to the fiber industries. Western farmers owe 

 a fair share of their success to imi)roved machinery, and it is through 

 improved machinery and new processes— turning the corners more 

 sharply with their eyes wide open — that our Eastern farmers will be en- 

 abled to produce textile products that shall in time drive foreign fiber 

 from our markets. 



MANTIFACTUEE. 



Mr.. Gary, of Dayton, Ohio, a flax manufacturer, estimates that at 

 present, in the West and Northwest, there are 100 flax-mills, producing 

 on an average 300 tons of tow of all grades. He estimates three-tenths 

 for upholstering, four-tenths for paper stock, and three-tenths for 

 baggmg. One hundred mills, producing an average of 300 tons each, 

 would give, in round numbers, 30,000 tons as the total flax manufacture 

 <if the West. According to the percentages given, 9,000 tons each art- 

 used for bagging and upholstering, and 12,000 for pa|)er stock, the totals 

 amounting, at a rough estimate, to over a million dollars. 



The last census states that there were 60 miUs in 1870 in the Western 

 37 AG 



