The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1861-03-21

Flax Cotton.

The frequent failures of the corn, wheat,
and other crops the uncertainty of the
markets, and the fuctuating prices of these
articles of produce, even when there is a
market for them, urge upon the farmers Of
the West the Importance of turning their
attention to an increase of the variety Of
their productions.
There is probably no other article that
will be more profitable, and meet with
more ready sale, than FIQx and Cotton. The
time has come when our Eastern manufac-
turers, and the people of the North and
West, should not be dependent on the South
or slave labor for many of their necessaries,
or for a market for their produce.
This has already been done by the intro
ductiOn of the sugar cane, and if persevered
in by our enterprising farmers and manu-
features, that of flax cotton is certain to
revolutionize cotton, and instead of having
King cotton, we will have King fax cotton.
Mr.. E. II. Derby, in a communication
published in the Boston Courier, in speaking
of movement in progress in Boston, for
the manufacture of fax cotton fabrics, says:
{" In the ordinary culture of flax, the
great expense is after the plant has ripened.
Five-sixths of the expenses are incurred in
preparing the ripened fax, by the old
wearisOme process for the spindle
This, l am assured, is avoided by the new
process, and the new crop will require little
more care than a field of corn. 1t is
harvested by horse power, like hay, and then
threshed and broken by machinery, and is, by
sOlveats, then converted into fax cotton,
and afforded to the manufacturer, as | am
creditably informed, at cents per pound.
In the Western States, large tracts are
cultivated for the seed only, and that fifteen
bushels of fax seed, with nothing for the
flax-straw, usually pays the cullivalor better
than 1gheat.
"The new process converts the refuse
straw of an acre of good fax, otherwise
worthless into 1000 pounds Of Hnten, a
fertile material worth $50 to $40, and into
ton and quarter more of sheaVes, said to
be nearly as valuable as hay for feeding
stock, and worth not far from $40 more,
independent of the seed.
I" A single acre of flax produces, and has
produced, 500 pounds of fax cotton. This
cotton gives but 3 per cent. waste in manu-
facture, while common cotton loses, by Eng
lish returns, eleven per cent. weight
in waste. The CROP therefore, of one acre of
Il am advised that Messrs. Sampson &
T4ppan, and other highly respectable gem
tlemen, are now erecting machinery, to
card, spin, and weave this cotton, and de-
velop this new invention-their process
has surmounted the difficulties that beset
the chevslier Claussen that their flax cot
ton equals in most particulars-and surpas-
ses in others-the common cotton, and can
be furnished at one-third less than the pre-
sent price of cotton, in the Boston market. |
Let our farmers look well to their own
interest. Let them go to work vigorously, |
and they will not only add much to their
own independence by cultivating this valu-
able material, but they will supply our
manufactures with valuable article of con-
sumption, and thereby add much to the
wealth of the country, and do great deal
towards breaking up the cotton aristocracy,
and consequently do much to render slavery
improbable, and in a few years we will be
able to supply England with this important
article Of commerce. Then cotton will no
longer be " King" or if so, he will be
very small one, with ne power left to de-
stroy this glorious Union.