Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1861-06-05
FLAX VS. COTTON.

FLAX VS. COTTON.
From the New York Evening Post of May l6.
The cotton States have founded all their
political and commercial Operations upon one
idea, that cotton is King, and that it rules the
world. In particular have they imagined that
France and Great Britain could not do with
ont it, and that this necessity would compel
them, sooner or later, to recognize the South
ern Confederacy. They have hooted at the j.
dea of any hostile competition in the produc-
tion of this article elsewhere in sufficient guam
tity and of adequate quality to supersede their
own. But we imagine they are about to be
undeceived, and that, too, in most unexpect-
ed manner.
We have seen at the Chamber of Commerce
the most beautiful specimens of flax cotton we
have ever examined, which is actually the pro-
duct of our n Northwestern States, and where
it grows in boundless extent, indigenous,
cheap, and to be had almost for the taking.
We have seen it after the first process, one of
a few minutes time; after the second, when
it was carded in the third, after ii was spun !;
and in the fourth, when it assumed the form
of cloth of the most beautiful texture, woven
into the fabrics now usually manufactured of
the Southern cotton. After the third process,
it cannot be distinguished in its appearance
from the finest cotton.
1t has long been suspected that there were
other vegetable fibers which might be made as
valuable as those of the cotton plant, and many
are in use in various parts of the world-such
the vegetable silk GrUore de palma of
South America, resembling cotton wool, but
not having roughness enough IN the fibre to
permit its being woven the pulu or vegetable
silk OF Owhyee the sunnee OF India, or brown
hemp; the iettee from Madras; the borassus
fibre from the palm tree countries; the jute
from Bengal, now rival of flax and hemp,
but limited in its use because it will not stand
being wet various kinds of hemp and fax
NJ Il
apple, China grass, Para grass, bast, &c.
All these have their uses and their value,
but the woolly covering of the seeds of the
gOssypium, or cotton plant, has supplanted
them all in quantity, quality, and general a.
dapfability to the wants and comforts of the
human race.
None of the fbers of the other vegetable
substances above mentioned, with the excep-
tion of flax, have ever been turned easily
and cheapIy to use. This, which the botanists
call Imam establishment, has been the chief
competitor of cotton but its preparation and
manufacture are effected by process so tedi
Gus and operose that very great efforts have
been made to shorten and simplify it.
AS long ago as 1928 patent was granted by
act of Parliament to Mr.. Lee for a method
of separating the fibre in two or three hours.
In 1852 SO Mr.. Schenck invented method
for preparing the fibre in sixty hours, and the
ChevaIler ClauSsen introduced, still later,
process by which the fibre, soaked in solu-
tion of the carbonate of soda. and afterwards
dipped in a weak acid solution, came out bro
ken up into minutest divisions, and in the
form of fax cotton, and when manufactured
proved to have a stronger and finer texture
than the best cotton. For some reason un-
known, the discovery was not proceeded with;
cotton still remained king but we believe its
downfall is at hand.
On our great western prairies, and in large
part of Western Canada, there is species of
wild fax, unknown to botanists formerly, which
is indigenous, perennial, herbaceous, and in
exhaustible in quantity. 1t put to no
use by the early settlers, except to make straw
of it for litter. Recently, the seed has been
considerably collected for the manufacture of
oil, but still later, its fibre has been found to
be very valuable, and now it has assumed a
momentous Importance through the means of
very simple invention. The stalks are placed
in a cylinder, and subjected TO an enormous
pressure of high steam-250 pounds to the
inch. In less than six minutes the contents
are blown out or exploded, and the flax comes
forth with the fibre divided up, and husk or
covering shattered into nfinitesimal parts.
1t then resembles Codilla, or tow. 1t next
passed through cylinders armed with teeth,
which hackle it and smooth out the fbres.
1t is then washed with nitric acid, and comes
out as white as snow. 1t is then carded, drawn
out into yarn; and is spun into thread precise
ly like cotton, and is ready for the loom.
Thus the old, tedious, and unhealthy process
of water-rotting is done away with, and so is
that of bleaching, to perfect which chemistry
has exhausted itself, and large fields of lawn
have been Indispensable.
This article, when ready for spinning, can
be afforded at uniform price of six cents per
pound, and enough of it can be gathered wild,
though it would be much improved by culture,
from our own prairies, TO ciothe The ,oorld iotth
a fabric Of the finest and most durable quality.
The experiments already made, and the mills
already constituted to manufacture it, have fur
nished the most conclusive evidence of the
truth of this magnificent discovery.
Samples of the article, in all its processes,
have been forwarded to Manchester, aud par
ties are ready 10 furnish many bales of it
all the mills in England may demand.
A Yankee in Iowa has just taught duck 10
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