PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 331 



grown in other places. But here, with cheap land and cheap 

 labor, the supply has been kept up at low prices Unfortunately, 

 the planters are wearing out the cotton lands with as great 

 rapidity as the tobacco planters- wore out their soil. Many plan- 

 tations that once produced cotton are now barren. 



R. G. Pardee. — One of the most important features of the present 

 times, we may say of the century, is the application of a new fibre 

 to the same purposes as cotton is now used. This is the manufac- 

 ture of a fibre termed Fibrilia, by Mr. Stephen A. Allen, of 

 Boston. 



That gentleman, after repeated experiments, has succeeded in 

 producing from ordinary Canadian flax, a material which he terms 

 flax cotton. The fibre so closely resembles that of ordinary 

 cotton that the most practiced judges can scarcely distinguish 

 between the one and the other. The calico produced from it is 

 pronounced much finer and better than that manufactured from 

 the best of cotton, and takes a better finish and brighter and 

 more permanent colors. The Fibrilia mixes with either cotton, 

 wool, or silk, and adds to the strength of either, whilst its price 

 is only equal to that of ordinary cotton. We understand that 

 the first experiments in the machinery intended for its manufac- 

 ture have proved quite satisfactory, and arrangements are being 

 made for bringing it into immediate consumption in difierent 

 parts of New England and the West. Mr. Allen in an address 

 before the Massachusetts Legislature, thus remarks on the pre- 

 paration of this raAV material : " When the flax is nearly ripe in 

 the field, it may be cut with an ordinary scythe or mowing 

 machine, and be cured like hay. The seed may be threshed by 

 an ordinary threshing machine, as it does not injure the fibre 

 for our purpose by becoming tangled. It should then be broken 

 and scutched by Randall's machines and the lint thus saved, 

 which has been reduced to a uniform staple, may be baled and 

 sent to the factory. A brake and scutcher may be turned 

 with much less power than an ordinary threshing machine, and 

 one of each should be owned in every neighborhood where flax is 

 raised to any extent. The seed will average from fifteen to twenty 

 bushels per acre. The lint or tow yields, for unrotted straw, 

 from 500 to 1000 pounds per acre, and is worth for making fibrilia 

 or flax cotton, when properly cleaned, from two to four cents per 

 pound. Farmers at the West now raise, (where they raise any) 

 for the seed alone, feeding the straw to the cattle, or throwing it 



