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the quality and yield also are greater than on the old plan. 
The Flax Society reported that Schenck's plan yielded 20 per 
cent, quantity more than by the old steeping, and in working 
fineness, Schenck's had greatly the advantage ; in quality, 
the market value, too, was stated to be, Schenck's 
£12 10s. per acre, against £9 8s. on the old plan. 
There are about twenty retteries in Ireland, on Schenck's 
plan, and in England the plan and modifications are in use ; it 
is, however, admitted that the Yorkshire practice is more con- 
tinuous, and most capable of ascertaining the full cost and 
advantages or disadvantages and expenses of this mode of 
working. Few as may be the flax works in England, yet 
some are more perfectly carried out than any in Ireland. 
By this judicious application of simple regulation of tem- 
perature, it seems that there is at once a new feature intro- 
duced into the flax trade. The grower of flax no longer 
need become a most imperfect manufacturer, with imperfect 
appliances and slovenly help and waste, with air and water 
spreading dismay or infection around. There are now intro- 
duced the very elements to excite confidence in capitalists, 
viz., that the flax should be purchased as a marketable article, 
and machinery, vats, and labour be applied, constantly, to 
stores of the material. The saving of seed, the storing of the 
plants, the purchase of crops, and the attention to the pro- 
cesses, conducive to the quality desired of flax fibre, have 
thus been brought before the interested capitalists of land 
and machinery. 
In 1850, six thousand bushels of seed were thus saved 
from the dried plant, and sold from the steeping concerns ; 
and the calculations were that 40,000 bushels would be the 
result to be looked for in following years as saved from abso- 
lute waste. 
With the introduction of regulated volumes of water and 
temperature, the obvious experiments again arose for the use 
