582 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OP AGRICULTURE. 



Snch an argument has weight viewing the case from the manufacturer'a 

 standpoint, but would not a little protection at the same time prove an 

 incentive to home production of the raw material and enable us to keep 

 at home a large share of the $800,000 now paid out to foreign producers! 

 As it is, little dressed flax is imported, the manufacturer buying scutched 

 flax as a partially manufactured product, at a low rate of duty, and dress- 

 ing it here. The ratio of foreign to native-dressed flax used in the United 

 States is said to be about 7 to 2. The flax is hackled in Europe, reduc- 

 ing it one-half while doubling its value, and it is then imported at about 

 the same as the raw material. With a protective tariff a vast industry 

 would spring up, and our farmers would reap a portion of its benefits. 

 There is another consideration of far more importance to the flax 

 interests, the bare statement of which should prove its own argument. 

 In the case of dressed flax it is claimed we could not at once furnish 

 anything like a supply should the foreign markets be suddenly cut off. 

 That does not alter the fact that we do now grow hundreds of thousands 

 of acres of flax straw, the greater part of which is wasted after the seed 

 is taken off. Why is this vast production allowed to go to waste ? A 

 manufacturer of Muncie, Ind., thus answers the question: 



It can only be attribiittxi to defective and ignorant tariff legislation. In 1879 there 

 was imported 119,:^)95,'200 ponndsofjnte bntts, used exclusively for paper and bagging 

 maaufactare, at an average price of' 2^ cents per pound, including $6 per ton specific 

 duty. At this low price flax-straw manufacturers are unable to compete with jnte 

 butta. In the same year there was imported 1,300,458 bushels flax-seed, averaging 

 $2.40 per bushel. Covering for cotton, allowed at 10 cents per yard, for which it could 

 "be furnished, would diistribute throughout the Western States about $3,300,000 derived 

 from an article that at present is principally wasted. Besides giving employment to 

 thousands of laborers, it would also give flax culture an impetus that would enable 

 us to supply the demand for seed instead of our having to grow com, wheat, and hom- 

 iny to export and trade for it, paying freight both ways, together with the different 

 margins of speculators. 



I would strongly recommend the appointment of a commission, comprising men 

 thoroughly con vepHant with their respective branches of manufacture, re^wiriw^ pro- 

 tection, iu order that each may be intelligently represented in an action by Congress 

 for the revision of the present tariff. 



An Ohio manufacturer, writing ftom Cuyahoga Falls, says of the flax 

 industry : 



It was greatly hindered by the hostility of the New York cotton-brokers, apparently 

 in the interest of the juie-bagging manufacturers, which led to the stopxjage of our 

 mills during the year 1879. 



I do not know to what special action the writer refers, but I am in- 

 formed by jute-manufacturers that the New York Cotton Board wlQ 

 receive no cotton whatever baled with flax bagging, giving as a reason 

 that flax bagging is so dirty it makes a difference in the price of the cot- 

 ton. This would seem an unjust discrimination — certainly in the interest 

 of a particular manufacture — and tending to discourage flax-bagging 

 manufacture. I cannot think, however, that the point is made against 

 flax-bagging in general, but against bagging made of unfit material. 



In 1878 the various cotton exchanges of the country took action to 

 discriminate against poor bagging manufactured from unfit material. 

 Green or unrotted flax-straw is held to be objectionable when made into 

 bagging, as cotton baled with such an article is not only injured by the 

 fragments of bark and " shive," but is liable to be stained by it into the 

 bargain. The Board of Trade of Saint Louis, in commenting upon the 

 action of the cotton exchanges, says that native flax, if well prepared for 

 use, reaches as high a standard as any other article used for the manu- 

 facture of bagging. In the Western markets jute has almost a monopoly, 

 some hemp bagging stiU finding its way to market with occasional lots 



