290 Transactions of the American Institute. 



the flax culture. A powerful inducement to grow it now exists in 

 the fact that flax can be prepared for sale almost wholly by 

 machinery, and at a small cost. I know that any mother would be 

 proud to say that the outfit of her daughter, consisting of sheets, 

 towels and pillow-cases, was the production of her own hands. 



Mr. Adrian Bergen. — When cotton was raised so cheap, farmers 

 were obliged to abandon the cultivation of flax, for, with their rude 

 methods of working it, in which no improvements had been made 

 from the time of the Egyptians, they could not stand the compe- 

 tition. 1 would be glad to see the culture renewed. 



Mr. Solon Robinson. — One important thing, which is not often 

 mentioned, is the superior healthfulness of flax cloth over cotton, 

 either for clothing or bedding. There is not a particle of doubt of 

 this. Whether people know it or not, the time is approaching, and 

 rapidly too, when cotton cannot be produced in anything like the 

 abundance it has been. Its cultivation has impoverished more acres, 

 and more farmers, than all the other crops combined. Travel, as 

 I have, through the South, and you will be convinced how great 

 the destruction of the soil has been. Our people must return to 

 the cultivation of flax. 



Mr. P. T. Quinn. — Southern soil has been exhausted by reason 

 of shallow plowing. The same cause would produce the same 

 result in the North. More light is needed among Southern farmers. 



Mr. N. C. Meeker. — I have visited the salesroom of Messrs. 

 Whitesides, No. 189 Church street, in this city, and learn that they 

 have the only linen works in this country; that they learned the 

 business in Ireland; imported their machinery from Belfast, costing 

 $80,000; that they employ from one hundred to two hundred 

 hands; that they have been obliged to experiment some, and hope 

 to find the business profitable, but there are difiiculties. Among 

 these, they have to compete with cheap foreign labor, while they 

 have a protection of only thirty-five to forty per cent, while wool 

 and woolens have from seventy to one hundred and twenty, and 

 silk sixty per cent. Then some persons have a prejudice against a 

 home-made article, and think nothing can equal the imported, and 

 sometimes, to make sales, prices are reduced. And yet the quality, 

 generally, is equal to the imported, while some linens are decidedly 

 superior, even at the same price. They make all kinds, such as 

 diapers, ducks, drills, huckabacks, and yams, taking the material 

 scutched from the farmer. Twenty cents a pound is as cheap as it 

 is in Ireland, and in this they are on a level. The spinning is 



