436 ' [Assembly 



growers, whom it designates as " a class of persons ignorant of 

 the commonest chemical principles," and handed over to capital- 

 ists or speculators who will erect the required machinery in dis- 

 tricts where the growth of a certain quantity of flax would be 

 previously guaranteed. According to the reports of the Society, 

 it appears that the profits upon the preparation of an Irish acre 

 of flax would be something like 200 per cent, upon the amount 

 paid to the grower for his produce. The farmer is paid for his 

 flax a price ranging from iI5 to j£8 per acre; the steeper upon 

 this principle of " division of labor," receiving a net profit (I 

 take the figures of the advocates of the plan) of upwards of .£20. 



With such indue emmts as these offered by the Flax Society, I 

 doubt much whether the agriculturists of this country will feel 

 very much disposed to enter upon the growth of flax to the ex- 

 tent which the circumstances of the case require ; and in Ireland 

 I have no doubt but that the whole scheme, fraught with so many 

 of the abuses of the middlemen system, will soon be found alike 

 intolerable to producer and consumer. 



The whole of these difficulties may, I believe, be easily over- 

 come by the adoption of a system more in accordance with the 

 present advanced state of practical science and knowledge, and 

 which involves the entire abolition of the whole of the existing 

 modes of steeping the flax in the straw. 



Steeping Injurious. — Not only is the present process of steep- 

 ing inconvenient and unnecessary, but it is highly -injurious, as 

 it imparts its injurious dyes to the fibre, deteriorates, and gives to 

 it an inequality of strength, which in the subsequent stages of 

 manufacture, are exceedingly difficult to overcome. I have 

 found this to be more particularly the case in the preparation of 

 the flax into a material capable of being spun alone or in combi- 

 nation with wool and cotton upon the existing machinery. I am 

 anxious that the grower should not resort to any of the existing 

 modes in the preparation of his flax ; for any one step taken in 

 that direction entails subsequently the necessity of much addi- 

 tional trouble and expense, in addition to most materially affect- 

 ing the strength and quality of the yarns and threads produced 

 from it. 



