284 DICKSON ON 



postponed. The later improvements which have followed the 

 wet spinning have consisted in the application of the combing 

 machinery, which has done so much for the worsted manu- 

 facture, to Flax tow, enabling a material, capable of being 

 spun to the finest yarn, to be obtained from what is otherwise 

 only of small value ; and various processes have to be tried 

 for cleansing and softening the raw Flax previous to its being 

 spun (Dickson's patent for oil and ammonia proved successful 

 for cleansing and softening). The manufacture of sewing 

 thread from Flax commenced not long after the introduction 

 of Flax- spinning by machinery, and has since increased, and 

 become a branch of the linen-trade of considerable importance, 

 a large proportion of the thread manufacture being carried on 

 at .Leeds.* The application of the power-loom to the weaving 

 of linens has, of late years, been considerably on the increase, 

 but to a much less extent than in the cotton and worsted 

 manufactures ; as the greatest part of the linens made in the 

 United Kingdom are still woven by hand labour. I have 

 thought it necessary to give this account of the nature of the 

 successive improvements introduced into the Flax-spinning, 

 in order to make the statistical figures I shall now quote more 

 intelligible. The sources from whence the statistics of the 

 linen and Flax-spinning trade may be derived are somewhat 

 scanty, but enough may be stated to indicate its progress. 



IMPORTS OF FLAX INTO THE UNITED KINGDOM. 



Average of 5 years. Tons. 



1820 to 1824 27,875 



1825 1829 44,491 



1830 1834 48,044 



1835 ,, 1839 61,218 



1840 ,, 1844 67,718 



1845 ,, 1849 68,879 



1850 ,, 1854 76,254 



Year 1855 64,672 



,, 1856 84,352 



* I was the first person able, by my experiments in Leeds in 1838, on a 

 power-loom made by a Mr. Busk, to overcome the great difficulty in making 

 a web of linen with a perfect selvage, and to introduce the loom into Belfast. 



