APPENDIX A. 



BRIEF STATEMENTS REGARDING FIBER MACHINERY. 



In countries like the United States, where the rates of wage.: are on 

 so different a plane from the prices paid for labor in countries like 

 China and India, the success of new fiber industries is largely depend- 

 ent upon mechanical means for extracting the raw product after the 

 crop has been grown. 



Cotton cultivation in the United States only began to be extended 

 after the invention of the Whitney cotton gin, and in like manner the 

 establishment of the sisal hemp industry outside of Yucatan has only 

 been possible since two or three improved automatic machines for 

 separating the fiber have been placed on the market. 



The production of China grass or ramie in many countries is so 

 dependent upon the settlement of the machine question that not a 

 pound of commercial fiber is produced in these countries, although, as 

 in the American Gulf States, the plant thrives in the proper soils, and 

 the machine question has been before the people for thirty years. 

 What is true of the cotton, the sisal hemp, and the ramie industries is 

 true of other possible American fiber industries, not excepting the pro- 

 duction of hemp and flax, the fiber of which the perfecting of several 

 special machines would largely aid in extracting. 



In China the fiber of Boehmeria is extracted by hand, and the par- 

 tially degummed "grass" can be laid down in Xew York City at G cents 

 per pound. In India the bast of jute is thrashed off by the ryot who 

 stands waist deep in a pool of stagnant water, and it can be sold in 

 New York at 3 cents per pound. American farmers, who are used to 

 the finest agricultural implements that can be procured will never resort 

 to Old World primitive methods — nor can they afford to do so — and the 

 machine becomes the most important factor in the problem. 



On these pages it is not possible to give a detailed account of the 

 vast number of fiber machines tbat have been brought to public notice 

 (luring the past fifty years, or even to enumerate them, and, therefore, 

 general statements only can be made. 



FLAX MACHINERY. 



It is a little surprising in this age of invention that the machine used 

 for scutching flax in many countries to-day, if machine it may be called, 

 is older than the invention of the steam engine by Watt. The scutch- 

 ing mills in Belgium, visited by the writer, were supplied with this 

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