PART II 



Instructions on Crimping or Breaking "Flax and Hemp Straw, Green or 

 Betted, Kheea, &c, &c, by Dickson's New Patent Crimping and Breaking 

 Machine— Instructions on Scutching Elax, by Dickson's Self-feeding 

 Treble Beating, Scutching, Scraping, Brushing, and Combing Machine 

 —Instructions on "Washing and Wringing Flax and Hemp, by the same 

 Patent Machines for Washing, Wringing, and Drying — Eemarks on the 

 advantages of the above Machines — Expenses and Economy compared with 

 that of preparing Elax by the Breaking and Scutching Machinery in use in 

 Ireland — Instructions on the mixing and using of the Patent Preserving 

 Liquid— Observations on the above, as by such system and machines, Green 

 Elax and Hemp can be taken from the field without Steeping (called ' Retting/) 

 and can be made soft and fine at pleasure, so that it will receive and retain a 

 permanent black that Sulphuric Acid, Muriatic Acid, strong soda, or 

 spirit of salt cannot remove — Advantage of Dickson's permanent Dye for 

 Cotton, Silk and Wool, as well as the several Indian Fibres, Flax and Hemp, 

 (as xhibited in the Leeds Industrial Exhibition) dyed various colours. 



Crimping, breaking, or bruising Flax or hemp straw, Kheea, 

 &c., whether in the green state as it comes from the field, or 

 after it has been retted, is, so far as I can judge by practically 

 working various machines, the most important part in the pre- 

 paration of the plant, in fact, good breaking is three-fourths of 

 the work required, for if the straw be broken through a series of 

 coarse and fine fluted rollers there will be little wood to scutch out 

 after, and as my breaking machines are kept in a beating and 

 a rotary motion, springs and weights, so as to allow any amount 

 of pressure I please to give, according to the quality that is to 

 be prepared of hard or soft fibre, it will be at once observed 



