Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/224

 a leaf of this plant be examined, it will be found to consist of an assemblage of fibres running parallel from one extremity of the leaf to the other, embedded in the soft pabulum. All the process necessary is to pass the leaf under a "tilt hammer," the rapid action of which, in a few seconds, completely crushes it, without in the slightest degree injuring the fibre, which remains in a large skein, and then requires to be rinsed out in soft water, to cleanse it from impurities, and be afterwards dried in the shade. So simple and rapid is the process, that a leaf, in a quarter of an hour after being cut from the plant, may be in a state fit for the purposes of the manufacturer, as a glossy, white fibre, with its strength unimpaired by any process of maceration, which, by inducing partial putrefaction, not only materially injures the strength of flax, but also renders it of a dingy color.

The pine-plant abounds both in the East and West Indies, and may be easily propagated from the crown; offsetts from round the base of the fruit, which often amount to upwards of twenty in number; and from the young plants which spring from the parent stem; its cultivation requires but little care or expense, and is of such hardy growth, as to be almost independent of those casualties of weather, which often prove so detrimental to more delicate crops—it is one of those plants which Nature has scattered so profusely through tropical regions, whose leaves are thick and fleshy, to contain a large supply of nourishment, and covered by a thick, glazed cuticle; admitting of so little evaporation, that many of them will thrive upon a barren rock, where no other plant would live. Also from the large portion of oxalic acid which the leaves contain, no animal will touch them, and are, therefore, exempt from the trespasses of cattle, &c. Indeed no greater proof of the hardiness of the plant can be given, than the fact, that in many places where lands have been under tillage,—afterwards abandoned, and allowed to return to a state of nature, the pine-apple plant exhibits the only trace of former cultivation; every other cultivated plant has died away before the encroachments of the surrounding wood, while they alone remained increasing from year to year, and spread into large beds.