Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-04-19
A NEW ELI WHITNEY.
To Do for Flax Fiber What Was
Done for Cotton.
From the World Today.

From the World Today.
A Massachusetts inventor has perfected
a process Of Transforming flax straw into
fiber that promises to add millions to the
revenue Of the American farmer, and to
make possible for the first time the man.
ufacture of linen fiber in the United
States
About four million acres OF land are
devoted to fiax-raising in the United
States. but only the seed Is utilized and
this. according to the census reports. has
an annual value of nearly $40. 600. 900.
The flax straw from which linen is made
is burned. There is no means Of telling
how many millions Of dollars have been
wasted in this way. but a late bulletin OF
the Department of Agriculture says that
Millions of tons of straw have been
burned each year, most OF which, In
fiber far excels the average straw from
which the Russian peasants make the
fiber which chiefly supplies the linen
fabrics of the world"
BY the laborious process followed
abroad, ii takes from sixteen to thirty
weeks to transform fax straw into linen.
There is first the ''retting." which. in Bel
GUM, is done by Weighing down the max
straw In pools OF water exposed to the
sun. until the wood or ''shive" Is rotted
away from the fiber. Then comes the
'scutching" or beating Of the dried straw.
After this IL is hacked by pulling the
straw through the coarse teeth or comos
for the purpose of removing snarls ana
tangles. The softening and bleaching
processes number twenty-five. after all
this has been done. before the finished
linen fabric is ready for market.
Now comes Benjamin c. Nudge. a grad
uate OF the Massachusetts, Institute OF
Technology. with a combined mechanical
and chemical process that makes linen
out OF straw in twelve hours. In place
OF the European method. which consists
very largely OF leaving the natural rot
ting process to accomplish the disfntegra-
work by machinery until the raw AJAX
fiber has been wrested from the fax
stalk. Then the chemical process begins.
and I can testify from observation that.
using three or four chemical baths, Mr..
Nudge first degums. then bleaches. sof-
tens and In the end makes a glossy.
white and exceedingly tough fiber out OF
what in the beginning looked like q mass
Of tangled horsehair.
The European method Yields about 10
pounds of fiber from one thousand pounds
of straw and sacrifices the seed crop. The
Nudge process secures 30 pounds or
straw after the seed has been saved. It
converts the "shive," wasted by the Eu-
ropean method. into q pulp for paper
making. and also saves the tow"
The one reason why linen fiber has
never been made In this country is that
the European process would be impossi-
bly, expensive unless carried out by labor
of the very lowest cost. There is no
labor in the United States cheap enough
for this purpose, and for this reason
Americans have been sending over 500
100000 year to Europe for linen. Now
mills have been built in Massachusetts to
operate the Nudge process. and there is
an assured market for the millions OF dol
lars worth Of fax straw that we have
been burning UP for years, and a chance
to get linens for little If any more than
the present cost of fine cotton fabrics.