184 [ASSEMBLT 



for mutton. He had seen them mix 20 pounds of wool with 100 

 pounds of cotton, and some were now putting cotton machinery 

 in their woollen factories for spinning all cotton yarns, putting in 

 here and there a thread having a little wool in combination just 

 for a blind. If either is to be combined with wool, fiax cotton is 

 far preferable. The amount of cotton now used for this purpose 

 in this country exceeds 20,000 bales. He exhibited besides a sli- 

 ver of refined bleached flax, soft, and fine as silli, some roving 

 and linen yarn from the same, which were greatly admired. The 

 roving was prepared in a different manner from what is usual, 

 said to be more expeditious and less expensive. 



Some of the greatest advantages resulting from this new Ame- 

 rican mode of mailing linen were, that all the flax will run to 

 fine numbers alike, while, by the use of rotted flax, only here 

 and there a lot of flax can be spun fine — that all the flax, coarse 

 or fine, and even hemp (a sample of which was exhibited), by 

 this mode of preparation, come alike fine, while, by the modes of 

 manufacture heretofore used, the straw must be very fine, made 

 by thick sowing, in order to be spun to fine numbers — that the 

 goods made from flax prepared in this way will bleach as easily 

 as cotton goods, not having 30 per cent of glutenous extraneous 

 matter twisted up with the fibre that cannot be removed without 

 injury to the fibre itself— that tlie linens made in this way must 

 be superior in durability to those made from flax prepared by 

 rotting, and which is generally injured in strength by the process, 

 being rotten as well as rotted. 



Dr. L. stated, that at Marcellus, N. Y., some very careful ex- 

 periments had been made as to the quantity of fibre contained in 

 a ton of straw — that flax, undivested of gluten, worked in the 

 crude state without netting or refining, such as is used for rope or 

 twine, the proportion to the weight of straw is as one to four — 

 that this loses in refining, necessary to produce linen, over one 

 half, requiring nine to ten tons of unrotted flax straw to produce 

 one ton of linen material, divested of everything but pure fibre, 

 or one ton of linen goods. 



By this mode of manufacture, linens could be made for about 

 the cost of cotton goods of the same weight and fineness, at the 



