290 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 5 



the mountains— and hence at one point near the 

 junction of White-earth river, it must extend to 

 480 N. latitude. Mr. Catlin, the painter, also 

 says he met it abundantly during his travels in 

 the far north-west. 



On the other side this plant is becoming accli- 

 mated in our middle and north-eastern states. In 

 1831-2, 1 found it during the winter in open gar- 

 dens around New York, and then predicted to 

 the committee on agriculture that it would become 

 a superior substitute for flax on the steril soils ol' 

 the adjoining states. The Yucca filamentosa 

 was there introduced from the southern states as 

 a merely ornamental plant ol" the gardens of the 

 northern slates, where they have accidentally dis- 

 covered that it propagates hself, and passes through 

 their bleak winters without injury. Even in the 

 garden of David Thomas, Cayuga county. New 

 York, the bear-grass grows through the coldest 

 seasons, without any prejudice to its green-living 

 leaves; and in Princeton, N. J. in January last, 

 several leaves were cut, and dressed in a common 

 flax mill — and the fibres sent to this room, where 

 they are now before me. They, however, still 

 retain a greenish color, and are comparatively 

 feeble, because they were bruised instead of be- 

 ing scraped. 



I hence trust that you will consider the subject 

 of fibrous-leaved plants sufficiently important to 

 your readers, to justify the publication in your pe- 

 riodical of the last twenty-two pages of the report 

 of the committee on agriculture of the house of 

 representatives. Should you coincide in my opi- 

 nions of their immense value to all the poorest soils 

 ot our southern states, you will, doubtless, be 

 pleased to request from your readers, information 

 concerning the localities and quantities of each in- 

 digenous species within their respective districts, 

 with such additional observationsas they will pro- 

 bably be equally glad to communicate. Should 

 your periodical thus make public the location of any 

 considerable quantity of our indigenous Yucca or 

 of our indigenous Agave; it will, no doubt, excite 

 our ingenious machinists to transport themselves 

 to tlie spot, and invent labor-saving machinery 

 suitably modified to scrape the leaves of each 

 species. Although not born in New England, I 

 had Yankee blood enough to invent, many years 

 ago, two forms of machinery adapted to separate 

 the Ibliaceous fibres from the green living leaves 

 of the Sisal hemp agave, and of all analogous 

 plants. Of the simplest form, an idea may be ob- 

 tained by comparing it to a common grindstone 

 moved by a treadle with the foot. A wooden 

 wheel of six feet diameter, when once set in mo- 

 tion would have its velocity so aided by its mo- 

 mentum, that a single revolution would scrape 

 the one side of any leaf or leaves applied to its 

 circumierence. For the leaves of the Sisal hemp, 

 at an average of lour to five feet, a curve of one- 

 fourth of the wheel would suffice. 



The curved compresser would be retained 

 near the surface of tlie wheel by spiral or other 

 spines. The perphery of the wheel would be 

 crossed by straps of hard wood, or of iron, with 

 blunt edges, for scrapers. The wheel once in 

 motion from the foot of the laborer, he would take 

 the but-end of a leaf in his hand, and insert the 

 point between the compresser and the wheel, 

 which would thus carry dovvn the leaf as far as 

 the but, still retained by the hand. One-fourth 



of a revolution would thus be spent in simply 

 carrying down the leaf between the surface of 

 the compresser and of the wheel; but the leaf 

 then being held fast by the hand, the other thiee- 

 fburths of the revolution would be a scraping pro- 

 cess alone. As the fibres thus exposed would not 

 then oiler any resistance to being withdrawn, the 

 leaves are then pulled out, and the unscraped side 

 is next inserted; and the fbliaceous fibres will thus 

 be separated on both sides to a short distance 

 fi-om the but-ends. Even that may be advan- 

 tageously lefi as a bond of union to the mass of 

 fibres, and thus save the labor of tying them into 

 knots. But as our countrymen will not be satis- 

 fied with the labor saved by such a machine, I in- 

 vented another to be moved by portable horse 

 power. This will consist of two pairs of cylinders, 

 to be called fi^eding cylinders and scraping cy- 

 linders. The upper cylinders to be smooth and to 

 move slowly; the lower cylinders to be grooved 

 and to move swiftly, and the leaf or leaves to be 

 inserted perpendicularly into the feeding cylin- 

 ders, and to be thus conveyed perperdicularly 

 through the scraping cylinders. Hence, both 

 sides of the leaves will be scraped at the same 

 time; and the offal will fall to the ground without 

 being entangled in the fibres. With this ma- 

 chine, however, there will also remain unscraped 

 a portion of the but-ends; but with me it is a ques- 

 tion whether it will not be more advantageous than 

 injurious, to let it remain as a bond of union to. 

 these long straight parallel fibres. 



I enter into these details to save a world of spe- 

 culation and of labor to other inventors, and culti- 

 vators. Their first impulse always is to seek 

 some analogy with common flax and hemp. 

 They will talk about rotting and breaking these 

 green-living leaves, as they have been accustom- 

 ed to treat the dry hard barks, from which they 

 extract flax and hemp. After having gone 

 through the whole routine of inventions and ex- 

 periments, they will, however, all finally arrive at 

 the conviction that simple scraping only, is the 

 cheapest, the easiest, the speediest and the heal- 

 thiest of all possible processes to obtain foliace- 

 ous fibres from the green-living leaves of fibrous- 

 leaved plants. 



I have the honor to be, sir, very respectfully, 

 your obedient servant. H. Perrine. 



[Tfie bill granting to Dr. Perrine 2.3,000 acres of 

 fand in Florida, for the purpose stated in seyeral fore- 

 going publications, finally passed on the last evening 

 of the session of Congress just closed. — Ed. Far. 

 Reg.] 



PREMIUMS AWARDED BY THE AGRICULTU- 

 RAL SOCIETY OF CHARLOTTE. 



[Publislied by request of tlie Society.] 



x\t the annua! exhibition of cattle and other 

 stock, belonging to the members of the Agricul- 

 tural Society of Charlotte county, held at the 

 Courthouse of said county on the 12th day of Oc- 

 tober, 1837 — premiums were awarded to the gen- 

 tlemen whose names are hereto assigned. 

 To Mr. John Marshall, for the best milch cow, 

 by Col. Marshall's Pompey, out of a Devon- 

 shire cow. 



