The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1908-01-01
REVOLUTION IN
TEXTILE INDUSTRY
A New Way Has Been Found
To Manufacture Linens
In America.
NEW MARKET FOR FARMERS
THE INTRODUCTION OF THE IN
DUSTRY WILL ADD MILLIONS
TO THE IMPORTANT INDUS.
TRIES OF THE COUNTRY,

Another revolution. textile experts
say, is due to occur In the ia brio max
ing industry Of the United States
Heretofore, owing to the high cost of
labor in America, it has been impossi-
bic to manufacture our linens at home.
American farmers raise millions of
tons of fax, but only for the seed.
The straw from which linen is made is
burned.
Now a Massachusetts inventor has
perfected a method of transforming
fax straw into linen fiber that is com
merctally practlca Bile under the labor
conditions prevailing in the United
States. From sixteen to thirty weeks
are required by old world methods to
accomplish what the process now con-
trolled by the oxford linen mills per
forms in twelve hours.
The initial process of linen making
abroad is to weight down the fax
straw in water until the woody "shive''
is rotted away from the fiber. The
'scutching" and combing of the straw
that follow are done by hand. All of
this work can now be done in twelve
hours by machines which loosen the
fiber from the stra W and prepare it for
the chemical baths that remove the
gums and oils and bleach the fiber
ready for spinning. At a recent dem
onstration for the benefit Of represent
atives of the press and others espe-
clally interested these chemical proc
esses were actually ACCOMPLISHED in a
space of thirty-fve minutes.
The best of the European methods
secures about 40 pounds of fiber from |
. thousand pounds Of straw and sac |
fitices the seed crop. By the Nudge |
process $50 pounds of fiber are obtain
ed from the same amount Of straw aft
er the seed has been saved. The new
process also preserves the shive for pa
per maktn% and the tow, which has
many profitable uses, including the
manufacture Of surgical bandages, ma
chinery waste etc.
Now Burn Millions Of Tones Of Flax.
A late bulletin Of the department of
or straw are burned every year, most
or which in quality and length for the
production OF fiber far excels the aver.
age straw from which the Russian
peasant makes the fiber which chiefly
supplies the lien fabrics of the world
Not only Is q new market now opened
up for the farmer. but for the first time
linens can be turned out on CONNER
cially profitable basis. and in Massa.
and Vermont mills are already
being equipped to produce linens made
In America
Eventually the S22 100000 a wear
that we now send abroad for linen will
be kept at home, and linens need not
any longer be a luxury The Oxford
processes provide a means for utilizing
raw material which costs less than
as much as cotton, but which
In the finished product sells for many
times as much. I
Even without the present tariff on {
linens they could not be manufac. Y
tured by old world methods in sue.
cessful competition with the new proc. &
esS, and the esta blishment of the In. .
dustry here begins with a prospect of g,
adding enormously to the total of cot
ton fabric production, now valued at 9
half billion dollars a year.