FLAX 



FLAX 



301 



tion Department. In the meantime, it is bargained 

 for by the various firms. The cars are then side- 

 tracked to the mills, where the mill hands unload 

 into their elevators. Once in the elevator bins, the 

 flax is spouted into the hoppers of large clean- 

 ers, which by means of their many shakes and 

 sieves separate the flax from the straw, dust, 

 weeds and other seeds. The foreign seeds are sold 

 for various purposes. The- flax is elevated from the 

 cleaner to a vertical system of five large rolls or 

 breaks ; the upper ones barely crush the ber- 

 ries, while the lower ones reduce them to a fine 

 meal, which is carried to large cookers that 

 temper it and heat it to 160° to 200°. Some 

 seeds need more moisture, others have too much. 

 The tempering adds to or takes from the grain 

 enough moisture to bring it to a common temper. 

 From the cookers the hot meal is drawn into a 

 conveyor that distributes it evenly in a mould 

 about 12 x 20 x 2J inches. To hold the meal after 

 these moulds are removed,' a camel's-hair cloth 

 is placed around it. The moulds or forms are 

 placed in a hydraulic press and subjected to a 

 pressure of 3,500 pounds per square inch. The oil 

 is squeezed out and . fiows into a small sluice tank 

 to rid it of the finest meal particles. It then goes 

 to the large tank or to the refining tanks. From 

 these the various grades of oil are drawn off into 

 original packages (barrels, etc.) for market. 



The grades of oil are named according to a sys- 

 tem peculiar to each mill. Thus, the same grade of 

 oil may have two or more names as it is put out 

 from two or more mills. The oils are used for a 

 variety of purposes, from the making of patent- 

 leather shoes to paints. 



Fiber. — The processes employed in making the 

 various products from flax fiber are- too long to be 

 described in detail. The old methods followed by 

 our fathers and mothers, as recently as 1870, were 

 crude, but were apace with the progress of other 

 industries at that time. A half-acre or an acre was 

 the extent of the flax-field, but each farmer grew 

 some flax for making the family's "homespun." 

 The flax was pulled, retted, hackeled, spun and 

 woven by hand. Today, the hand labor is elimi- 

 nated almost entirely. In fact, it is difficult to get 

 men to do any of the hard work for which ma- 

 chinery has been invented. When cut, if the flax is 

 stood up in shocks, there is damage done to the 

 stalks where they touch the moist soil. 



After harvesting, the seed is threshed from the 

 straw. This is done in some instances by holding 

 the heads of the bundles in the cylinder of the 

 threshing machine. In others, the heads are cut 

 from the stalks in the process of breaking and are 

 threshed in a separate device. In olden days, the 

 seed was pounded out by whipping the "hand" (a 

 handful) over a barrel, or it was " rippled," that is, 

 drawn through a coarse comb. 



Flax grown for fiber in this country is threshed 

 by passing the heads repeatedly between rapidly 

 revolving cylinders or belt pulleys, the seed being 

 afterward cleaned with fanning -mills. Special 

 threshing machines are used at the two binder 

 twine factories. 



In preparing the fiber for weaving, the straw 

 must be passed through a process of decay, called 

 retting. This loosens the outer covering and shives 

 (the inner or woody part of the plant) from the 

 bast fibers and makes the separation of the fiber 

 easy. The retting is accomplished in two ways : 

 (1) By aerial- or dew-retting, i. e., spreading the 

 flax on the ground in an open field or pasture ; (2) 

 by placing the bundles in slow-flowing streams or 

 pools (Fig. 410). The latter is the true way of 

 retting, makes a whiter, better fiber and is much 

 quicker. The steeping in this way acts constantly 

 on the mucilage that holds the fiber and wood to- 

 gether. Rain-water is said to be best, although 

 river-water is most commonly used. One or two 

 weeks is sufficient time for pool-retting, while many 

 weeks are often necessary properly to dew-ret. 



It is obvious that the fermentation must stop at 

 the proper time. This is observed to be just when 

 the fiber separates easily and freely from the woody 

 stalks. The straw should then be removed from the 

 water and spread out thinly and allowed thoroughly 

 to dry. When dry, the straw goes to the " break." 

 The hand-break was a large wooden mallet which 

 fitted into a V-shaped bed-piece and was worked up 

 and down by hand. The power-breaks vary in style, 

 but consist essentially of corrugated rollers which 

 draw the straw through and at the same time 

 crinkle the fiber and break the shives into small 

 pieces. From the break the broken straw is 

 scutched and hackled, i. e., pounded by hand or 



Fig. 410. Retting flax in the river at NorthfleM, Minn. 



pulled over a series of rapidly revolving fingered 

 rollers to remove the shives. 



In scutching, the broken straw is held in hand- 

 fuls against revolving paddles which beat off the 

 shives. In hackling, the scutched fiber is drawn 

 by hand across sets of fixed upright steel pins to 

 comb, separate and straighten the fibers. Machine 

 hackles are used for cheaper grades in some mills. 



In the early days the fiber went to the loom with- 

 out further preparation or treatment. But the 

 latter-day American must have his linen immacu- 

 late and uncolored by threads of natural color. 

 For this reason the fiber goes through a boiling 

 and bleaching before it is made into cloth. This 

 practice, to a certain degree, is detrimental to the 

 lasting quality of the cloth. 



This, however, does not apply to American-grown 

 flax, as this flax is not used for fine linens. Shoe- 



