490 TRANSACTIONS OP THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



motion is to relieve the fibre from the boon longitudinally. The 

 next effect is to break it, but never till after the bars have first 

 loosened it. This action avoids the possibility of injury to the 

 fibre, by the teeth and scrapers, in removing the boon or shoove. 

 To operate this machine, one person (a boy or girl may do it) 

 places the flax-straw in a clamp, about two and one-half feet long, 

 and about one inch wide, by one half inch thick, the inner sur- 

 face being lined with rubber, so as to yield to the unevenness of 

 the straw as it is laid in it. The clamp is jointed at one end, 

 like the newspaper-holder, and is very like it in appearance. 

 Each clamp, filled with the straw, is laid upon a table near the 

 machine, and is then taken by another person (boy or girl), who 

 presents it to the feed rollers, holding one end of the clamp until 

 the rollers have drawn the straw in. After the straw has been 

 drawn in a little more than half its length, the operator then 

 steps upon a treddle, which reverses the motion of the feed 

 rollers, (the feed rollers being so arranged that they feed the flax 

 out five times as fast as it is fed in). The operator then pre- 

 sents the other end of the straw held in the clamp, which is fed 

 in as bofore. 



The product, after undergoing this operation, is in a fit state to 

 spin into all goods of a coarse character, such as twin&, toweling, 

 etc., etc., but for fine goods, like flax fibre, dressed by all other 

 modes, it has to pass through a subsequent hackling process, but 

 with this remarkable difference — the fibre's cleaned by this ma- 

 chine being all unbroken and uninjured, and each fibre being 

 perfectly parallel with every other fibre, and being entirely free 

 from boon. The hackling process is attended with very little loss. 

 The inventor of this machine has spent much time and. in con- 

 nection with other parties, much money under the conviction 

 that it was possible so to construct a machine that it would 

 operate not only with a great saving of fibre, and without danger 

 to the operative, but that it might be made so simple and cheap 

 that every farmer, however poor, could afford to have one ; he, 

 also, believed that could such a macliine be placed in the hands 

 of the farmer, so great an impetus would be given to the grow- 

 ing of flax for textile fabrics, that within a few years it would 

 become an important branch of industry in all the free States, 

 remunerative to the farmer and beneficial to the community. 



Many scientific men, and men of experience in flax dressing, 

 have examined the Sanford machine, have tested its practical 



