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and determined opposition to improvement. We see the 
Hindoo wasting the fibre, and carefully collecting the grain ; 
the Irishman heedless of the seed, and working only for the 
fibre, importing from other lands seed to replace that 
destroyed by waste at home ; the Englishman, believing that 
the seed and plant alike exhaust the ground, and are too un- 
profitable to pay, while England gladly pays and freely 
imports from many lands the flax in fibres, the flax in seed 
for sowing, and for oil, and cake, as food to fatten cattle. 
The obscurities of simple processes, the tradition of ages, 
receive satisfactory explanations by the closest application of 
chemical talent, and happy suggestions are made to avoid 
nuisance and pestilence and utter uselessness and loss, and to 
convert the same into substances unexpectedly useful ; into 
food taken with grateful relish, and with healthful and most 
profitable results. When we see chemistry thus aiding life, 
and capillary and chemical forces acting upon the delicate 
fibres, so as to render them mixable with other materials, 
blending so as to produce strength, novelty, and beauty, with 
the prospect of profit, I hope that the claims of science to 
advance business interests will be felt by all ; while the early 
and experimental specimens of the manufactures will speak 
to those who are best able to understand the staple trades of 
this great town, and the value of meetings such as this Society 
purpose, when the men of science may appreciate the condi- 
tions of manufactures, and the energetic capitalist see the 
union that can alone accomplish required results, — the union 
of intelligent industry, capital, confidence, simple mechanism 
with cheap power, and chemical analysis guiding chemical 
affinities and results. 
The researches of Sir Robert Kane and Dr. Hodges, and 
the labours of Mr. Mac Adam, were dwelt upon ; and the trade 
literature of flax in Ireland ; acknowledgments were made 
