ANTIQUITY OF ITS USE. 3 



leaving these allegories, acted as well as written, and 

 confining ourselves to simple facts, we may observe, that 

 to innumerable individuals of the great human family 

 does flax supply the various items of clothing, writing 

 materials, bedding, fuel, medicine, external as well as 

 internal ; manure, material to aid the painter's art, and, 

 indirectly, animal food of the highest nutritive qualities ; 

 and above all, when duly appreciated and properly 

 managed, it affords that inestimable blessing to a popula- 

 tion,- a constant source of remunerative employment, 

 which it is our present duty to detail and explain. 



ANTIQUITY OP THE USE OP PLAX. 



The historic succession of the articles employed to 

 furnish human clothing, is probably this : Skins and 

 peltry may be safely allowed to take the first place in 

 chronological order. Wool, which preceded hemp in 

 Europe, sufficed for ages to clothe our forefathers. Before 

 the establishment of the empire, the Eomans were un- 

 acquainted with any other garments besides those manu- 

 factured from wool. Hemp had scarcely arrived from 

 Asia to compete with this second material for human 

 vestments, when the flax of Egypt immediately presented 

 itself, to dispute with it the superiority ; and its merits 

 caused it to spread with such rapidity and with such 

 advantage to those who employed it, that the value and 

 estimation of fine hemp suffered a considerable diminu- 

 tion in consequence. In later times, cotton has ap- 

 peared to compete with flax and hemp ; and its abund- 

 ance, the singularly cheap rate at which it is capable of 

 being cultivated, the immense extent of country suitable 

 for its production, and above all, its peculiar fitness for 

 being manufactured by machinery, have rendered it so 

 common, and consequently so cheap, that it has advantage- 

 ously taken the place of both the original fibres for an 

 infinite variety of purposes. 



It would appear that flax is a native of the plains 

 which overspread Persia, towards the east ; at all events, 



35 2 



