Agricultural and Teclmicah 



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Finlsterre, and Pas de Calais. In Belgium tliere are about 

 100,000 spindles in operation ; the factories being at Ghent, 

 Liege, Tournai, Malines, and Brussels. Holland possesses only 

 one factory of about 6000, in Friesland. Russia has two large 

 factories, one at Alexandrofsky and the other at Moscow, toge- 

 ther numbering about 50,000 spindles. Austria possesses eight 

 factories, with about 30,000 spindles in operation. In the 

 states of the Zollverein about 80,000 are estimated to be in use ; 

 and in Switzerland there are three or four small establishments, 

 making between them from 8000 to 10,000 spindles. In the 

 United States twelve small factories exist, having in operation 

 about 15,000 spindles ; these are situate in the states of New 

 York, New Jersey, Pensylvania, and Massachussets. 



Now, reckoning the average cost of buildings, machinery, and 

 motive power at 90s. per spindle throughout, it would appear 

 that there is altogether a Jlxed capital of upwards of 800,000/. 

 invested in the trade, of which sum 500,000/. belongs to this 

 country. Notwithstanding these large returns of machinery in 

 operation at home and abroad, we find that the hand-spun yarn 

 very far exceeds it in quantity, since throughout the Continent 

 hand-spinning is still carried on to an enormous extent. The 

 consumption of flax worked up by these spindles averages about 

 25 tons per 1000 spindles per annum for fine yarns, and about 

 30 to 50 tons for coarse yarns. 



Our manufacture of linen has increased from 45,000,000 

 yards in 1805 to 110,000,000 yards in 1850, notwithstanding 

 the enormous development of the cotton industry during that 

 interval. Our exports, too, testify to the position we occupy in 

 foreign markets. In 1850 these amounted in the aggregate, for 

 yarns, thread, small wares, and woven goods, to 4,828,994/. ; 

 in 1851 to 5,058,822/. ; and in 1852 to 5,356,871/. Of the woven 

 goods exported, the markets of the New^ World take the greatest 

 proportion ; those sent to the eastern hemisphere being of trifling 

 amount in comparison. From returns recently published w^e find 

 that 39,000,000 of persons in America consume annually more 

 than 2 yards of our linen per head — equal to \s. 3|^/. sterling; 

 in Canada the proportion is Is. 6^<f., or nearly 20 per cent, more 

 than in the United States ; while 228,000,000 in Europe take 

 but l-38th part of a yard per head. This remarkable difference 

 does not arise so much from the consumption being propor- 

 tionally less in the countries of the Old World as from the com- 

 paratively high duties which most of them maintain on the 

 import of linen goods, and from the small disposition to use 

 them in Asia and Africa, where cotton fabrics are almost exclu- 

 sively used. 



In conclusion, I would merely recapitulate the points which 



VOL. XiV. p 



