No. 149.] 449 



with silk wool, [Cheers.] The loss of the potato crop was 

 doubtless a severe infliction, but he could consider no dispensa- 

 tion of Providence more remarkable than that it should liave be- 

 come the means, by the aid of science and skill, of overcoming 

 the difficulty consequent upon tlie diminution of the supply and 

 the increase in the price of the raw material of our principal 

 manufacture. -By this discovery we should be, in a great degree^ 

 made hidependent of the foreign supply of the great staple of our man- 

 ufacture ; and if the cultivation of flax met with due encourage-^ 

 ment they would hear but little more, he was confident, of the 

 distresses of the weavers of Carlisle." 



Sir James is a great admirer of the mutual dependence of nations 

 resulting from the closing of the mills and furnaces of the world, 

 by which the planters and farmers of the world are rendered de- 

 pendent on England for their supplies of iron and of cloth ; but 

 he would seem equally to admire the mutual independence of 

 nations, as manifested by the substitution of English and Irish 

 flax for Georgia and Alabama cotton. How long will our planters 

 continue to aid in the maintenance of a system of policy that 

 drives all the spinning machinery of the world to the countries 

 that can and will grow flax at far less cost than they can grow 

 cotton ? 



Judge Vanwyck. — It appears to me that this subject greatly 

 Increases in interest as discussion leads to new developments, 

 and our agriculturists ought to have all the light that can be 

 brought before them. It is our duty and a great pleasure to be 

 able to help them by collecting and then diffusing every ray of it. 

 It is too apparent to escape the observation, that in raising and ' 

 managing flax we should divide the labors, thus making it very 

 easy for one man to sow, another to rot, another to dress, &c., 

 &c. The farmer will raise enough as soon as he is convinced of 

 the profits. In old times we made flax one of the regular crops, 

 enough for each farm, and tlie spinning-wheel was busy in every 

 good farmer's house. The cloth they made cost something more 

 than the imported linens, but they wore twice as long. Our wor- 

 thy friend Blakeslee, of WatertoAvn, in Connecticut, sends us a 

 very fine sample of his last year's flax crop, the stalks three feet in 



[Assembly, No. 149.] DD 



