INTROD UCTION. 1 5 



1887, we at once see how little foundation 

 there is for the outcry now being raised, 

 ostensibly in behalf of domestic hacklers. 

 While the increase in the imports, during 

 the period named, of hackled flax, was 

 less than twenty per centum, the imports 

 of scutched flax show a gain in the same 

 time of over seventy-five per centum in 

 value. And yet we are seriously invited 

 to pity the poor hackler, and shield him 

 from the assaults of that terrible ogre, the 

 hackled flax importer ! 



It will be observed that throughout this 

 volume the nomenclature of raw flax which 

 obtained prior to the tariff of 1870 is 

 employed. Raw flax is held to mean the 

 fibre of the flax plant so long as it remains 

 a fibre simply. The several preparatory 

 processes through which the fibre passes 

 rippling, steeping, spreading, lifting, 

 scutching, hackling, each requiring care 

 and mechanical dexterity are designed 

 and intended to put the fibre into a con- 

 dition suited to the reception of the first 

 process of manufacture, i.e., the preparing. 

 Until the preparing frame has metamor- 

 phosed the material, there is no essen- 



