PAPER-MAKING MATERIALS IN RUSSIA. 311 
probable, be satisfactory, the price of many useful kinds of paper might 
be materially lowered. 
Mr. M. Bernstein, of Odessa, states that in the government of 
Kherson, about 80,000 dessiatines (or French hectares) of land, after 
lying seven or eight years fallow, are annually cultivated with flax. 
No kind of manure whatever is employed in this culture. Operations 
are limited to a simple autumn ploughing, sixteen or eighteen centi- 
metres deep, and followed by two harrowings in the followiug spring* 
No hoeing or weeding are ever resorted to. The expense of cultivation 
for one dessiatine (seed included) does not exceed six or seven roubles- 
Coarse flax is the only kind cultivated in this country, and solely for the 
sake of obtaining the seed. The inconvenience of our dry tempera- 
ture, want of water for retting the flax, scarcity of lands, &c, prevent us 
from cultivating the other kinds for the fibre. 
Taking for basis the average of two years' crop, one dessiatine gives us 
about four tchetwerts linseed which produces an annual total of 320,000 
tchetwerts of seed and about 45,000 kilogrammes weight of stem, con- 
taining excellent fibre. This refuse material is generally employed as 
fuel, or is left to rot, in consequence of the considerable distance it is 
from the linen and paper mills. 
Flax in this country is generally mowed in the manner wheat and 
other cereals are, so that the stem is detached from the root, the totally 
useless part. 
Having separated the seed from 'the stalk, and exposed this latter to 
the action of dew or rain, to dissolve the resinous gum, and after getting 
it trampled or beaten asunder by horses on a threshing floor, one may 
obtain the fibre almost entirely deprived of its ligneous particles. This 
experiment has already been made by one of my*acquaintances in a 
neighbouring farming establishment. The fibre could be compressed in 
the same manner as wool and cotton, so as to be exported in the smallest 
possible volume. It is more than probable that, an English company 
furnished with necessary capital and establishing at Odessa an office for 
the purchase of the material (which could be obtained for little more than 
the cost of transport), and erecting a paper mill, would reap very large ad- 
vantages on the capital employed for this purpose. 
In the Journal of Odessa of Jan. 18, 1865 we find the following 
remarks : — .Recently we had a conversation with a large landed pro- 
prietor who cultivates flax on a grand scale, and we asked him what he 
did with the stems of the plant which contain so much useful fibre. 
They serve for fuel, he replied. 
The want of labour prevents the cutting or pulling up the stems, and 
it has to be mown and is then passed through a mill to separate the 
seed. Hence, the fibre is not fit for textile purposes. ' But this material 
b nevertheless, too valuable to be wasted as fuel, a papermaker could 
derive great profit from the use of this substance which would be equal 
o the best linen rags. 
There are few branches of industry which offer greater prospects of 
