of  the  Ashes  of  Plants. 
527 
The  products  of  the  scutching  process  are  the  fine  flax  fibre — 
the  fine  tow,  which  consists  of  the  former  twisted,  broken,  and 
tangled,  but  otherwise  the  same  in  composition — and  the  coarse 
tow,  which  is  a mixture  of  fine  tow  with  a certain  quantity  of 
wood ; these  three,  with  the  wood  itself,  are  all  the  products 
arising  from  the  scutfching. 
An  experiment,  on  the  small  scale,  made  at  Trimingham,  gave 
the  following  numbers  as  representing  the  proportions  of  each 
product : — 
1 4 lbs.  of  the  fine  flax,  steeped,  being  scutched,  produced 
46 £ oz.  of  fine  flax  fibre  . 
2^  oz.  of  fine  tow  1 
13f  oz.  of  coarse  tow  j ' * 
161 J oz.  of  wood 
or  21  per  cent, 
or  7 per  cent, 
or  72  per  cent. 
Mr.  Warnes,  amongst  other  experiments,  has  mentioned  to  us 
one  in  which  25  cwt.  of  steeped  flax  yielded  5 cwt.  2 qrs.  6 lbs. 
of  fine  fibre,  which  is  as  nearly  as  possible  21  per  cent.,  and 
agrees  accurately  with  the  determination  before  given.  Allowing 
the  quantity  of  flax  of  inferior  strength  or  necessarily  destroyed 
in  the  scutching,  that  is  to  say  the  fine  and  coarse  tow,  to  be 
about  the  same  in  the  hands  of  any  one  workman  at  different 
times,  we  shall  have  72  per  cent,  as  the  proportion  of  wood.  This 
number,  being  probably  very  nearly  true,  will  be  adopted : 3020 
lbs.  of  steeped  stalks  will,  upon  this  showing,  produce  in  the 
scutching, — 
2174  lbs.  of  wood, 
634  lbs.  of  fibre, 
212  lbs.  of  flue  and  coarse  tow. 
It  is  obvious  that,  by  the  deduction  of  the  mineral  matter  of  the 
wood  from  that  of  the  steeped  stalks,  that  of  the  other  products 
would  be  obtained,  or  vice  versa.  We  have  some  reason  to  doubt 
the  wood  which  was  analyzed  having  been  produced  from  the 
same  crop,  both  from  its  composition  and  because  it  was  not  col- 
lected at  the  same  time ; it  will  therefore  be  better  to  deduct  the 
ash  of  the  fibre,  of  which  we  know  the  history,  from  that  of  the 
steeped  straw  which  produced  it ; for  this  purpose  the  fine  and 
coarse  tow  will  be  considered  to  have  the  same  composition  as  the 
fine  fibre,  which  it  would  have  but  for  the  small  quantity  of  wood 
mixed  with  the  coarse  tow;  any  error  introduced  from  this 
source  will  be  too  small  to  affect  the  result  in  an  appreciable 
degree. 
The  table  which  follows  gives  the  ultimate  distribution  of 
the  mineral  substances  which  have  survived  the  process  of 
steeping. 
2 m 2 
