66 FLAX CULTURE 



silk, and no one ever thought of calling 

 ginned cotton a manufactured product, to 

 be taxed at a rate different from unginned. 

 In fact, to draw a rough parallel between 

 flax and cotton, if it were the custom to 

 gather the cotton-plant, the removal of 

 the fibre from the boll would correspond 

 to the " scutching ; " and the ginning, which 

 removes the seed, to the subsequent 

 " hackling." Yet ginned cotton is univer- 

 sally admitted to be a raw material. So, 

 too, with silk ; the eggs of the silkworm, 

 the cocoons, the silk reeled from the co- 

 coon, are all admitted free of duty. In 

 the tariff of 1846, a duty of fifteen per 

 cent was imposed on reeled silk, while the 

 cocoons were admitted free, but that need- 

 less distinction has long ago been repealed. 

 The maintenance of this distinction be- 

 tween " scutched " and " hackled " flax 

 can only be a burden on the manufac- 

 turer. It were just as reasonable to 

 compel the Northern cotton-mill to gin its 

 cotton, as to force every American flax- 

 mill to hackle European flax. 



