1861. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



141 



cotton or fibrilia for twenty-five years, it would 

 double her whole State valuation of 1S60. 



Dr. WiNSi.ow, of Boston, said he had had his 

 attention called by the chair to tM'o points — the 

 practicability of raising flax to a profit, and its 

 effect on the great staple of the Southern States. 

 Speaking of the manufactures of flax, he said the 

 great object was to work it on cotton and wool- 

 len machinery ; the difficulty has been its long 

 staple, the thread being bound in the stem of 

 the plant as a bunch of rods ; but now an excel- 

 lent machine is invented to break the stem, after 

 which the fibrilia can be mixed with cotton or 

 wool, and spun and woven with either. He then 

 spoke of the opinion given by Dr. Hayes, of 

 Boston, that the short staple flax could be 

 bleached and colored just as easily as either 

 cotton or wool. He closed his remarks by say- 

 ing that Massachusetts mind and Massachusetts 

 invention had been in a great measure the cause 

 of the present jealousy on the part of the South 

 towards the North. 



F. W. Tappan, of New York, being called on, 

 said the flax cotton could be produced, as it was 

 exhibited to the meeting, for two-thirds of the 

 price of cotton. He said the flax in the West 

 was mowed with mowing machines, and thus was 

 harvested cheaper than any other grain croji. 

 The idea that you can get a crop of flax only 

 once in seven years is now obsolete, and flax is 

 considered a good preparatory crop for wheat. 

 Flax is bought in the West to be delivered in 

 Boston for 4.^ cts. per lb., and this flax has been 

 cottonized here and sent back and sold where 

 it was grown for 15 cts. In Western New York 

 and Ohio, in the farming districts, the flax is 

 raised for the seed alone, there being no market 

 for the straw, and this is often used to fill up 

 holes tn the roads to get it out of the way. 



Mr. Allen, the Chairman, said that good land 

 •will produce two tons of straw to the acre; from 

 this five bushels of seed can be got worth $1,50 

 per bushel, and if the straw is broken on the 

 ground, 300 or 400 lbs. of fibrilia ready for the 

 epindle can be obtained, leaving 25,000 lbs. of 

 stalks, which will be more nourishing for cattle 

 than the same amount of hay. He said that 

 from a quarter of the cultivated lands of the 

 North, flax enough could be raised to more than 

 four times equal the cotton crop of the South. 



E. Haskett Derby, of Boston, next spoke, 

 and said he had travelled much in the South, and 

 that the cotton there cost from five to six cents 

 to raise, without the profit of the planter. He al- 

 luded to the idea prevailing there that cotton is a 

 regal product, and by it they controlled the com- 

 merce of the world. To show the fallacy of this, 

 he spoke of the products of India, where more 

 cotton was raised than in the whole South, as al- 



so that that country raised over 700,000 bushels 

 of flax seed, besides indigo and almost everj^- 

 thing else. He said that, from actual observa- 

 tion, he knew that the product of South Caroli- 

 na, on old lands, was only 100 lbs. of cotton to an 

 acre, while with the plentiful use of guano and 

 other fertilizers, on the best lands, they could not 

 raise over 300 or 400 lbs., and the entire State 

 did not average more than from 100 to 200 lbs., 

 to the acre. The wild flax, said he, is indige- 

 nous to Oregon and California, as also in other 

 portions of our country, and reckoning the yield 

 of wheat at 20 bushels to the acre, with the extra 

 cost of harvesting, that a person raising flax 

 would be a clear gainer of the value of the lin- 

 ten. He concluded by speaking of the disposi- 

 tion of slavery to move southward, two-thirds 

 of the slaves now being south of the Carolina 

 line, and that the extensive cultivation of flax 

 as a substitute for cotton would be the true meth- 

 od of ameliorating the condition of the negro. 



Richard S. Fay, of Boston, said flax culture 

 was no new thing in Massachusetts, and if he 

 thought it could be grown to advantage no one 

 would give it more attention than he would, but 

 he thought it could not. He was engaged in 

 manufacturing, and came to the meeting to obtain 

 information as to the cost of growing flax, and 

 the best manner of doing so, and not to discuss 

 the question of slavery. He had found, in his 

 experience, that both cotton and wool had a ser- 

 rated edge, and when wound together, would hold 

 firmly, whereas flax was round, or tubular, and 

 could not be made to unite with either cotton or 

 wool. His opinion was, that a ton of flax could 

 not be produced at a profit in Massachusetts, and 

 he desired to know how much it would cost to 

 grow an acre of ground in flax, and how much 

 flax you could get. He was of opinion that if a 

 man had a farm of 50 acres, and grew 5 acres in 

 flax each year, for 10 years, he would be ruined at 

 the end of that time. He spoke of the great la- 

 bor required to cultivate flax, and warned farmers 

 not to be induced to turn their land to flax with 

 the expectation of making large profits. 



The Chairman said that he could not give the 

 cost of cultivating flax in any particular locality, 

 as the land and climate made all the difference, 

 but he did know that their agents in the West 

 could engage all they wanted for 4i cents per 

 pound delivered here. Speaking of cotton, he 

 said that in bleaching it becomes serrated, while 

 wool was tubular, and had rings as it were around 

 the tube ; flax is tubular, and in long line spin- 

 ning is smooth, while if broken in the Randall 

 machine by the solving process, the tubes become 

 flat at the ends, and thus will unite easily with 

 either cotton or wool on the common cotton or 

 woollen machinery. 



