402 [Assembly 



our strength. Fas est ab hoste doceri — it is lawful to learn from 

 our rivals. It stands us in hatid to look about us, instead of oc- 

 cupying our time with politics and office seeking. We look out 

 for the far-searching rivalry of England, seen in all parts of the 

 earth, with her experimental farms, seeking for cotton growing 

 climates and soils, and every other raw material to which she 

 can apply her mechanism, and head the world by it. It is true, 

 that as yet we grow cotton better than almost any portion of the 

 globe. . We have about two-thirds of all our lands which can 

 yield cotton ; but flax is congenial to all the civilized world, 

 reaching far north and far south. Flax may soon become a com- 

 petitor with, or superior to, cotton. I wish to awaken my coun- 

 try from its lethargy on this subject. Let the Institute commence 

 by awarding suitable premiums ; let it call on the State and on 

 the general government to take the matter up and excite to im- 

 mediate action. France, in the days of Napoleon's prosperity, 

 offered a premium of one million of francs for the spinning of flax 

 by machinery like that of cotton. 



The flax grower has two objects — one is the fibre, and the other 

 the seed. For raising the seed, follow the books : plough deep, 

 in rich and well manured soils ; sow thin, in order that the flax 

 may branch out well and yield much and good seed. If you 

 plant for the fibre, a less rich soil sown thickly, gives a single 

 stem slender and of a finer fabric. Some say that if you go for a 

 crop of seed, you may as well give up all hope of the fibre. Some 

 men, as old as I am, will recollect the great quantity of flax seed 

 formerly exported ; while now I see, by last year's report, the 

 United States exported only about four thousand dollars worth. 

 In 1815, our exports had already fallen below a million of 

 bushels. When flax is grown, then comes the hard and costly 

 labor of pulling it by hand. That will no longer answer for us ; 

 it is not fit for our people. I will not permit, if I can help it, an 

 American citizen to toil for Chinese wages, of a cent a day, or any 

 of the low pauper wages of other countries ; but if we can apply 

 genius to the work — give almost life to engines — pull, spin, and 

 weave the flax with machine power, at the low price of cotton, 

 I am for it, with all my heart and all my zeal. 



