No. 149.] 443 



relative proportions of the materials employed, thus extending 

 the markets, and giving increased employment to the operatives. 



15. That, by M. Claussen's process of bleaching, any useless 

 flax can be converted into a first-rate article for the paper-maker, 

 at a less price than the paper-maker is now paying for white 

 rags J and suitable for the manufacture of first-class papers. 



In conclusion, M. Claussen and his friends had no doubt that 

 a plan might be devised by which the grower of flax would de- 

 rive not only the benefits to be obtained from the sale or con- 

 sumption of his flax-seed, and the sale of his straw, as stated in 

 the paper read, and the further advantages to be derived by him 

 from the partial separation of the woody part of the stem from 

 the fibre, which would reduce the cost of transit, and provide 

 for a larger return to the land ; but also the larger profit to be 

 derived from the transforming of the straw into fibres suitable 

 for any of the purposes above described, according to the sug- 

 gestion pointed out in the paper read to the meeting, and thus 

 secure to themselves that double profit, which, under the present 

 system, it was all but impossible for them to obtain. 



Sir James Graham inquired whether the farmer, in separating 

 the seed from the straw, would be liable to injure the fibre ? To 

 which 



M, Claussen replied that no such injury to the fibre would 

 arise from any of the present modes of separating the seed from 

 the straw, so long as the separation was made longitudinally; 

 that an ordinary thrashing machine might be so employed as not 

 to injure the fibre j in fact, that tlie only injury that could arise 

 would ensue from breaking the fibre across, or steeping it on the 

 old system. 



The Chairman thought it desirable that no time should be lost 

 in putting the farmer in possession of all the conditions under 

 which flax could be grown advantageously, and conveyed to 

 market at a profit, as the time for sowing the crop was near at 

 hand. 



