FIBER FLAX. 



Fiber flax on the other hand required the land to be sown 

 with the highest grade of pedigree seed in quantities of 2% 

 bushels. This has the effect of a thick crowded crop being pro- 

 duced with no side branches and long, soft, strong fiber. This 

 fiber flax is a dainty feeder, not like beet, corn or turnips and 

 having only a delicate tap root that penetrates deeply and re- 

 quires the nutriment it does absorb to be of the most assimilable 

 qualities and the soil requires to be in the most permeable tilth 

 for the tender root system to penetrate. 



HEMP. 



As this book was intended to elaborate my distinctly Ameri- 

 canized European system of fiber culture, hemp from its great 

 value and high adaptability to our Puget Sound region, is entitled 

 to a prominent place here. As fundamental principles, have a 

 most important bearing on many of the phases of the fiber ques- 

 tion, and right here we are met with some very interesting ones 

 that require elaboration in this place. 



There are several classes of commercial fibers, as the best 

 fibers, such as Manilla, Agave, Aloe, etc., are produced in the 

 thick, fleshy part of the leaves, and though possessing large in- 

 dustrial utility, are coarse in fiber and low in price, but not 

 adapted to the requirements of Bast fibers. Among the Bast 

 fibers we have first flax (which, owing to its superlative economi- 

 cal quality, the botanists named it Linum Usitatissimum). 



Hemp is also of great economic importance. Then we have 

 a number of less well known Bast fibers that yield strong, silky, 

 beautiful fiBers, but not yet admitted in general merchantable 

 use. They are found among Mallows, Okra, Milkweed, the Net- 

 tles, Burdock, etc. In this place, however, returning to hemp 

 which possesses some fundamental features that call for con- 

 sideration, in contrast to flax. Flax, being a monaceous plant, 

 that is one having the both male and female flowers on one 

 plant. While the hemp has the male and the female flowers on 

 different plants and is therefore called Diaceous, and here looms 

 up another fundamental principle in which the flax matures 

 whole plant at the same time when sowed broadcast. The hemp, 

 on the contrary, grows its male plants about two or three times 

 as high as the female plants and as soon as it sheds its polen 

 to fertilize the female plants it attains the highest state for pro- 

 ducing the best fiber, while the female plant, continuing to ma- 

 ture its seed for three weeks or a month longer before it at- 

 tains the stage of maturity to produce the highest quality of fiber, 

 Consequently, when hemp is sown broadcast (as it is in Ken- 

 tucky and other parts of the United States) and we cannot segre- 

 gate the male from the female plants, they both grow together, 

 the male plants being over-ripe and the female plants not suffi- 

 ciently mature, both being materially depreciated in price and 

 quality for want of uniformity. 



My cure for this evil is simple and efficacious and its adop- 

 tion will greatly enhance the pecuniary value of the finished 

 product. 



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