THE CULTIVATOR. 
127 
could not be re-engaged. This information is not in any of the pub¬ 
lished reports, and is preliminary to understanding some of the fol¬ 
lowing extracts, from which we shall see tne progress of the willow 
basket manufactory, at the New-York Blind Institution. 
Their first annual report to the Legislature for the year 1836, in¬ 
forms us (p. 5,) that 
“ The managers finding much difficulty in establishing mechani¬ 
cal employments, in the early part of the year wrole to Edinburgh, 
and engaged a competent instructor, who arrived the latter part of 
October 1833, and enabled them to undertake the manufacture of 
mats, mattresses and willow baskets.” 
In December following, there was an exhibition and exercises by 
the blind at the City Hotel in Broadway, at which was made the 
following statement: 
41 In the mechanical department, the managers after trials and dif¬ 
ficulties of various kinds, have the pleasure to announce that they are 
now well supplied with a conductor in the efficient services of Wm. 
Murray, a young man who is himself blind, and who knows how to 
bear with patience the awkwardness of beginners in acquiring those 
trades to which he has been brought up in the school for the Blind 
in Edinburgh, and a knowledge of which he can impart to others in 
his own condition. This acquisition is the result of a correspondence 
with the directors of that Institution in Scotland. Murray arrived a 
few weeks since, and he has already given practical demonstration 
of his ability in making baskets, mats and mattresses, specimens of 
which may here (at the City Hotel. New-York, Dec. 1833,) be seen, 
made by him, and the pupils under his direction.”—(1st Annual Re¬ 
port, p. 7.) 
In tracing the progress of the mechanical department of the Insti¬ 
tution for the Blind, we learn that the articles manufactured and sold 
there in 1836, amounted to $1,295.58, of which $444.56 were for 
willow-baskets, (Report, p. 15,) and that there was on hand at the 
end of the year a considerable amount of basket-work finished, to¬ 
gether with 120 bundles of foreign willow, which cost one dollar per 
bundle. 
The business of basket-making having become firmly established 
at the Institution, the committee on manufactures reported at the 
close of the year 1838, that there had been made during the year, 
1722 baskets, and numerous chairs, cradles, band-boxes, &c., and 
that they had on hand 675 .bundles of willow as a stock of raw mate¬ 
rials for the ensuing year. The committee say, that 
“ In the manufacturing of these articles, the committee have been 
guided solely by the good of the pupils and the Institution, as they 
cost less to get up, and when done, find a ready sale. The pupils are 
very anxious to become proficient in this’manufacture, as they know 
when the time arrives for them to leave the Institution, they can, if 
proficient, start the willow-basket business with only a few bundles 
of that article, and can make for themselves a good and comfortable 
living. The articles manufactured in this department will compete 
with those made by workmen not deprived of sight.”—(3d Report 
p. 20.) 
In the sixth annual report it is stated (p. 18) that, “ Two male pu¬ 
pils lately (that is in the latter part of 1841) left the Institution and 
removed to New-Orleans, and two others to Chenango county in this 
State, with the intention of manufacturing willow-work ; they under¬ 
stand the business thoroughly and will be enabled to earn their own 
living.” 
In our former communication on this subject, it was shown that 
large quantities of willow raised in France and Holland were impor¬ 
ted into this country, while we have it growing wild in abundance, 
that it may be. and has been cultivated by a few, together with se¬ 
veral varieties of foreign growth. The manufacture of willow was 
also stated to be of two kinds, one made of fine split willow, and one 
made of the willow twigs without splitting—that the fabrication of 
fine willow-ware was in the hands of foreign artists and was wholly 
imported ; while our own artizans could produce as good, but from 
cheap labor in Europe, and defrauding the revenue as is believed on 
importing the articles, our countrymen could not compete with them, 
and that accordingly they had the control of the market in the sale 
of fine and fancy willow-ware. But on the other hand, Americans 
have the domestic market to themselves, for large and coarse wil¬ 
low fabrics, because on account of lightness and bulk, they cannot 
be imported. 
In this essay it will be seen that the blind even, can be taught to 
work correctly and profitably at this business, that it is a trade of 
extensive usefulness and great magnitude, that the raw material is 
abundant and may be improved by cultivation, and foreign varieties 
added to our native stock, and while we are cultivating willow, those 
so engaged are benefitting themselves and improving the country, 
because swampy lands and peat bogs when drained, are the places 
where willows grow most luxuriantly. 
Now I would ask, ought our own countrymen to be excluded from 
tlicir own markets in the manufacture of fine split willow ? For 
one, I should be for imposing such duties as to give them protection 
against the introduction of fine willow-ware. Independent of politi¬ 
cal considerations they ought to have it, because the art is truly a 
manufacture, every thing is done by hand, and cannot be done by 
machinery, and the business must be pursued by individuals, and 
cannot be monopolised by large companies. By encouraging the 
manufacture of willows, we invite the farmer to a new article of 
culture, and the conversion of swamps into willow groves, which 
will give profits equal if not superior to uplands, and at the same time 
improve and render healthful such swamps and low lands, which be¬ 
fore produced agues and fevers, and their train of evils. 
In our former communication, we omitted to mention that great 
numbers of square willow baskets with lids, are made in New-Jer- 
sey and filled with bollles of fine Newark cider, marked and sold in 
New-York as foreign champaign. 
If any person should be desirous of commencing a plantation of 
willows, it may here be repeated thal March or April would be the 
time to transplant them, and that Mr. John Reed, who lives in the 
township of Southfield on Staten Island, about five miles south-west 
of the Quarantine establishment, can furnish cuttings of the best for¬ 
eign varieties, or those of indigenous growth improved by cultiva¬ 
tion. Richmond. 
Oakland Farm, Staten Island, Nov 4th, 1844. 
FLAX CULTURE FOR THE SEED, 
And for seed and lint—its effect on the soil as preparatory 
for a wheat crop—Flax Mill—Flax pulling Machine, fyc. 
Editor Cultivator —The culture of flax for the seed 
only, has been found to be a very profitable blanch of 
rural economy in Seneca County. Flax culture on our 
clay loams, has the elfect to keep the soil loose and po¬ 
rous, so that after the flax is g-athered, the stubble needs 
only half the working necessary to fit an ordinary fallow 
for wheat. It is the opinion of many sensible farmers, 
who do not on that account, grow flax, that a flax crop 
immediately followed by wheat, is too exhausting to the 
soil for economical husbandry; per contra, it is stoutly 
maintained by others who have successfully grown wheat 
after flax, that if the soil has not been previously too 
much worn, wheat will succeed better after flax, than on 
the summer fallow. It is true that the gluten of the 
stem and seed of flax, presupposes a great assimilation 
of azotized matter; but the action of the roots of the flax 
plant on a tenacious soil, seems designed by nature to fit 
that soil for the reception of ammonia, for which we are 
told allumina has a great affinity; thus nature has given 
to that plant which requires much nitrogen, the mechan¬ 
ical structure of root, to fit the soil to absorb the consti¬ 
tuents of nitrogen and carbon from the atmosphere. The 
quantum of inorganic matter taken by flax from the soil, 
(not having seen the analysis,) I am unable to determine; 
but it is well known that of all the cereal grains, wheat 
contains by far the greatest portion of these substances, 
its straw alone yielding nearly four times as much ashes 
as the straw of oats, and twice as much as that of barley. 
Hence, may we not infer that it is to the previous exhaus¬ 
tion in the soil of its wheat forming pabulum by previous 
wheat crops, and not to the alternation of an occasional 
flax crop, that the wheat product is deteriorated. 
About four years ago, a mill for breaking and dressing 
flax was erected in this village, (Waterloo.) The enter¬ 
prising proprietor, Mr. Gardner Wood, has induced ma¬ 
ny farmers to pul! their flax, and to dew rot and save the 
lint; instead of pursuing the old course of cutting up the 
flax with the scythe, and appropriating the seed only. 
To encourage a more general pulling of the flax in or¬ 
der to save the lint, Mr. Wood has procured from the pa¬ 
tentee in New-Jersey, a flax pulling machine. It is of 
wood and iron on low wheels, about the bulk of a small 
wagon, cost $90, with the right to use it. With the help 
of this machine, four men have pulled and bunched six¬ 
teen acres of flax in four days; but as the machine re¬ 
quires some mechanical tact, and can only be used on a 
smooth surface, most of the flax intended for dressing, is 
still pulled by hand. 
The success of the Seneca county farmers in making a 
flax crop a succedaneum for the sun stricken fallow, has 
induced many farmers in the neighboring counties to 
adopt its culture. In the town of Hannibal, Oswego Co. 
a flax dressing mill has just been erected, which will 
dress this season about 20,000 lbs. of clean flax. Mr. C. 
Gifford, of the same town, has grown the past season on 
five acres of land, 58J bushels of seed, and 1,750 lbs. of 
dressed flax; the flax netted him 5 cts. a lb., the seed 9 
shillings a bushel. A. Taber, of Ira, Cayuga County, has 
harvested the past season, 18| bushels of seed to the acre 
on nine acres; the lint of the same yielded about 2,500 
lbs. of clean flax, worth at tide water, nine cents a lb. 
The land on which the above crops were grown, was In¬ 
dian corn stubble, plowed once in the spring, harrowed 
and sowed late in April, with three pecks of seed to the 
acre, and harvested as soon as the balls began to change 
color, which, last season, was about the 20th of July, two 
weeks earlier than in ordinary seasons. The field of 
Mr. Taber had never received any animal manures; it 
was on one of those all fertile alluvial ridges of finely di¬ 
vided matter, so common to the gravelly or rather peb¬ 
bly loams of the north part of Ca) uga, Seneca, and the 
south division of Wayne county. S. W. 
Waterloo, Seneea Co. N. Y., Feb. 21, 1845. 
