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DICKSON ON 



postponed. The later improvements which have followed the 

 wet spinning have consisted in the application of the combing 

 machinery, which has done so much for the worsted manu- 

 facture, to Flax tow, enabling a material, capable of being 

 spun to the finest yarn, to be obtained from what is otherwise 

 only of small value ; and various processes have to be tried 

 for cleansing and softening the raw Flax previous to its being 

 spun — (Dickson's patent for oil and ammonia proved successful 

 for cleansing and softening). The manufacture of sewing 

 thread from Flax commenced not long after the introduction 

 of Flax- spinning by machinery, and has since increased, and 

 become a branch of the linen-trade of considerable importance, 

 a large proportion of the thread manufacture being carried on 

 at Leeds.* The application of the power-loom to the weaving 

 of linens has, of late years, been considerably on the increase, 

 but to a much less extent than in the cotton and worsted 

 manufactures ; as the greatest part of the linens made in the 

 United Kingdom are still woven by hand labour. I have 

 thought it necessary to give this account of the nature of the 

 successive improvements introduced into the Flax-spinning, 

 in order to make the statistical figures I shall now quote more 

 intelligible. The sources from whence the statistics of the 

 linen and Flax-spinning trade may be derived are somewhat 

 scanty, but enough may be stated to indicate its progress. 

 Imports of Flax into the United Kingdom. 



Average of 5 years. Tons. 



1820 to 1824 27,875 



1825 ,, 1829 44,491 



1830 ,, 1834 48,044 



1835 1839 61,218 



1840 ,, 1844 67,718 



1845 „ 1849 68,879 



1850 ,, 1854 76,254 



Year 1855 ...... 64,672 



1856 84,352 



* I was the first person able, by my experiments in Leeds in 1838, on a 

 power-loom made by a Mr. Busk, to overcome the great difficulty in making 

 a web of linen with a perfect selvage, and to introduce the loom into B eiiait. 



