Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/308

 296 FLAX catccl, and the broken shives are beaten out by suspending the fibre in a machine fitted with a series of revolving blades, which, striking violently against the flax, shake out the bruised and broken woody cores. A great many modified scutching machines and processes have been pro posed and introduced with the view of promoting economy of labour and improving the turn-out of fibre, both in respect of cleanness and in producing the least proportion of codilla or scutching tow. The celebrated Courtrai flax of Belgium is the most valuable staple in the market, on account of its fineness, strength, and particularly bright colour. There the flax is dried in the field, and housed or stacked during the winter succeeding its growth, and in the spring of the following year, it is retted in crates sunk in the sluggish waters of the river Lys. After the process has proceeded a certain length, the crates are withdrawn, and the sheaves taken out and stooked. It is thereafter once more tied up, placed in the crates, and sunk in the river to complete the retting process; but this double steeping is not in variably practised. When finally taken out, it is unloosed and put up in cones, instead of being grassed, and when quite dry it is stored for some time previous to undergoing the operation of scutching. In all operations the greatest care is taken, and the cultivators being peculiarly favoured as to soil, climate, and water, Courtrai flax is a staple of uuapproached excellence. An experiment made by Professor Hodges of Belfast on 7770 ft) of air-dried flax yielded the following results. By rippling he separated 1946 Ib of bolls which yielded 910 Ib of seed. The 5824 Ib (52 cwt.) of flax straw remaining lost in steeping 13 cwt., leaving 39 cwt. of retted stalks, and from that 6 cwt. 1 qr. 2 Ib (702 Ib) of finished flax was pro cured. Thus the weight of the fibre was equal to about 9 per cent, of the dried flax with the bolls, 12 per cent, of the boiled straw, and over 16 per cent, of the retted straw. One hundred tons treated by Schenck s method gave 33 tons bolls, with 27 50 tons of loss in steeping; 32 13 tons were separated in scutching, leaving 5 90 tons of finished fibre, with 1 47 tons of tow and pluckings. The following analysis of two varieties of heckled Belgian flax is by Dr Hugo Miiller (Hoffmann s Berichte ilber die Entwickelung der chemischen Industrie] : Ash 070 1-32 Water 8 65 1070 Extractive matter 3 65 6 02 Fat and wax 2 39 2 37 Cellulose 82 57 71 50 Intercellular substance and pectose bodies 274 9 41 According to the determinations of Wiesner (Die Rohstojfe des PjJanzenreiches), the fibre ranges in length from 20 to 140 centimetres, the length of the individual cells being from 2 to 4 millimetres, and the limits of breadth between 012 and - 025 mm., the average being 016 mm. FIG. 2. Fibre of Rough Russi.au Flax (magnified). Among the circumstances which have retarded improve ment both in the growing and preparing of flax, the fact that, till comparatively recent times, the whole industry was conducted only on a domestic scale has had much influence. At no very remote date it was the practice in Scotland for every small farmer and cotter not only to grow &quot;lint&quot; or flax in small patches, but to have it retted, scutched, cleaned, spun, woven, bleached, and finished entirely within the limits of his own premises, and all by members or dependants of the family. The same practice obtained and still largely prevails in other countries. Thus the flax industry was long kept away from the most power ful motives to apply to it labour-saving devices, and apart from the influence of scientific inquiry for the improvement of methods and processes. As cotton came to the front, just at the time when machine-spinning and power-loom weaving were being introduced, the result was that in many localities where flax crops had been grown for ages, the culture gradually drooped and ultimately ceased. The linen manufacture by degrees ceased to be a. domestic in dustry, and began to centre in and become the characteristic factory employment of special localities, which depended, however, for their supply of riw material primarily on the operations of small growers, working, for the most part, on ths poorer districts of remote thinly populated countries. The cultivation of the plant and the preparation of the fibre have therefore, even at the present day, not come under the influence (except in certain favoured localities) of scientific knowledge and experience, and the greater part of the flax in use at the present moment is prepared pre cisely by the processes employed in Egypt when the descendants of Jacob dwelt in the land of Goshen. In England and Scotland the acreage under flax is now so limited, and it has decreased with such steadiness and rapidity, that, as a crop, flax may be regarded as practically extinct in these countries. Indeed, notwithstanding the numerous measures by which Government sought during last century to foster flax cultivation, and the direct grants to cultivators in Scotland, which down to the year 1828 were paid by the board of trustees for fisheries and manu factures, the cultivation cannot be said ever to have thriven in a healthy manner. The following summary, showing the extent in acres of the cultivation in Great Britain for the years 1870 till 1877 inclusive, has been communicated by Mr Michael Andrews of Belfast : Year. Enfilaml. . Wales. Scot hind. Total. 1870 22,354 204 1399 23,957 1871 15,9-19 175 1244 17,368 1872 14,011 84 1262 15,357 1873 13,752 190 741 14,684 1874 9,018 117 259 9,394 1875 6,547 54 150 6,751 1876 7,366 36 239 7,641 1877 7,210 28 243 7,481 In Ireland the cultivation of flax has always occupied a relatively much more important position than it has in the sister countries, though there also the experience is that it is a rapidly declining agricultural crop. In the time of Queen Anne a board of trustees of the linen and hempen manufactures for Ireland was instituted, by which body liberal grants were administered. The board continued its operations till the parliamentary grants were withdrawn in 1827, and itself dissolved in the following year. In 1841 a Royal Flax Society of Ireland was formed, which received from Government an annual subsidy of .1000, and it con tinued to exist till 1859. Still more recently a joint flax committee of the Royal Dublin Society and the Royal Agricultural Society of Ireland was formed, and admin istered grants from the imperial exchequer from the year 1864 till 1871. The acreage of Irish flax cultivated has fluctuated with these subsidies, having reached a maximum of 181,909 acres in 1824, from which it steadily declined to 53,863 acres in 1848. In 1853, partly stimulated by high prices and scarcity owing to Russian complications, it it again rose to 174,579 acres; and the cotton famine consequent on the civil war in America again greatly