AMERICAN IN15TITUTE. 459 



The increasing demand for the fabric of paper would seem at 

 first blush to render Mr. Blanc's process very valuable, but when 

 carefully investigated we find that the material must be furnished 

 at two cents a pound, in order to bring it into use; we hesitate in 

 saying it can be done even as simply as Mr. Blanc's patent 

 describes the process, at a remunerative price at that sum. All 

 questions like this are rather matters of economy than of specu- 

 lation, and practice alone can reveal the truth of our impressions. 



Mr. Blanc is certainly entitled to much praise for the import- 

 ant step he has taken, if it be extended to the seed-bearing plants 

 only, for if it give an impetus to them and become the means of 

 encouraging our agriculturists to raise the 500,000 pounds of flax 

 annually imported, many millions of dollars will annually be 

 saved to our country and distributed to our citizens. The demand 

 is constantly on tlie increase — each ship equipped requires 

 150,000 lbs. — are we to let this important and increasing trade 

 remain in foreign hands, or shall we by the industry and inge- 

 nuity of our citizens, aided by that Hand that gives us the sun- 

 shine and the rain, plant the seed and raise the crops ourselves ? 



WM. LAWTON, 



F. W. GEISSENHAINER, JR., 



G. E. WARING, JR., 



Committee. 



Mr. Solon Robinson read the following communication from 

 Mr. E. C. Goodrich, of Utica, N. Y. : 



Utica, Friday^ March 7, 1856. 



Having noticed in the Tribune of Feb. 20, some commendatory 

 notices of the Chinese potato, and of its adaptation to this cli- 

 mate, but particularly of its free and general use in the diet of 

 the Chinese, permit me to cite some historical facts upon the lat- 

 ter point to show that th6 writer in your paper is probably mis- 

 informed. 



I have before me a new work on China, entitled " The Middle 

 Kingdom," in two volumes, embracing more than 1,200 pages. 

 Its author, S. Wells Williams, L.L.D., went out to China as a 

 missionary printer, about 1832. He was engaged for many years 

 in printing " The Chinese Repository,'' at Canton, and, perhaps, 

 is still so employed. He has traveled somewhat extensively in 

 the East, having once made an overland journey home (to Utica) 

 and having been engaged also as interpreter to Commodore Perry, 

 in his recent visit to Japan. The history of Mr. Williams was 

 written after his visit to his native land, in 1847. It enters very 



