NEW MODE OF PREPARING FLAX. 179 



must beg their careful attention to the following incontro- 

 vertible facts. 



" After a close connection of five years with two extensive 

 establishments a distillery and brewery in the north of 

 Ireland, from 1824 to 1829, I presume it will be granted 

 that, during that period, I had formed a pretty correct 

 idea of fermentation, its causes and effects ; and having of 

 late heard so much about the necessity of fermenting Flax- 

 straw by retting, steeping in cold or hot water, or in other 

 words, rotting it, in order so to decompose the wood on which 

 the fibre is produced that it will break easily, and with 

 equal facility be beaten or scutched out of the fibre 

 surrounding it, it struck me very forcibly that by such 

 process, a very large portion of the finer filaments of the 

 fibre must be lost by decomposition, and that it was possible 

 to invent and bring into use a machine that would separate 

 the green unretted fibre from the wood, without cutting 

 or otherwise injuring it, and that the result would be a 

 great saving of fibre. Now, in this I have been successful 

 beyond all question, inasmuch as I can produce 5lbs. of 

 fibre out of 14lbs. of green Flax-straw, whilst the result 

 of the very best experiments reported by the Belfast 

 Flax Society in their annual transactions, cannot show 

 more than 2lbs. of fibre out of 14lbs. of retted straw, 

 and as the Messrs. Marshall, of Leeds and Tatrington, 

 say that it takes 12cwt. of green straw to make 9cwt. 

 when retted, it is evident that I have one-fourth less straw 

 for the 5lbs. of green fibre, than those experiments which 

 only show 2lbs. out of 14lbs. of retted straw. There 

 is only one instance on record of 2 Jibs, being taken from 

 14lbs. of retted straw in Ireland. 



" Having explained the manner in which I am enabled 

 to produce double the weight of green fibre, compared with 

 that produced by any other method yet known, I shall now 



