And this produce would be realized with little more labor than a crop
of oats or wheat, returning less than twenty-five dollars to the acre.
Unless the soil should be foul, no weeding would be required, while the
breaking would cost little more than a second threshing, and a second
crop of turnips can be taken from the same soil.
From the patent brake and the picker the linten is carried to a retort,
which may hold from five hundred to three thousand pounds of fibre,--the
capacity of one hundred cubic feet being required for each thousand
pounds; and the retort, which may be made from boiler-plates, costs from
three hundred to fifteen hundred dollars. Here the linten is put into
a hot bath of air forced through heated water, and thus charged with
moisture, which softens the filaments and diminishes the cohesion of
the fibres. After this air-bath, pure water of the temperature of one
hundred and forty to one hundred and sixty degrees is admitted into the
retort, and the linten is immersed in it for five or six hours.
After this steeping process is completed, the water is let off from
below, and pure water admitted from above under pressure, until the
color begins to change; the fibre is then steeped for three or four
hours in a weak solution of soda-ash; the alkali is washed out by the
admission of pure water alternating with steam, and, if necessary to
complete the bleaching, a weak solution of chlorine is applied. All this
may be effected without removing the linten from the retort. The product
is then dried as in ordinary drying-rooms.
When dried, it is carried again through a set of cards, and a piece of
machinery termed a railway-head, with positive draught, which can be set
so as to give any length of staple, and to present the flax-cotton thus
produced in any form required for spinning, either separately or mixed
with cotton or wool, and thus adapted to the machinery used in the
manufacture of either of these articles. The cost of this process, from
the brake to the final production of the cotton, is set by the patentee,
after leaving him a fair profit, at three cents per pound of cotton;
and if we add this to the cost of the linten, and allow for freight and
storage, the entire cost of the fibrilia is but eight cents per pound,
or two-thirds of the present price of middling cotton.
The idea of modifying the filaments of flax and hemp so as to convert
them into cotton is by no means a new one. As long ago as 1747 it was
proposed to convert flax into cotton by boiling it in a solution of
caustic potash, and subsequently washing it with soap; and in 1775 Lady
Moira, aided by T.B. Bailey, actually converted some refuse flax into
cotton by boiling it in alkali. The result was, that the fibres seemed
to be set at liberty from each other; after which it was carded on
cotton cards, spun, and woven as cotton.
The Chevalier Claussen, as recently as 1850, claimed to have discovered
the process, and actually took out a patent; but his invention, which
consisted in boiling the cut and crushed stems of the flax in a solution
of caustic soda, turned out a failure,--the cutting, crushing, and
boiling processes proving alike defective.
New discoveries are the result of repeated trials; perseverance usually
prevails; and if States are to secede at pleasure and withhold their
cotton, and no other good uses can be found for flax or hemp, why should
not their fibres secede also,--be set at liberty and resolve themselves
into a cotton state?
We might pass from the fibrous plants, and the metamorphosis of flax
into cotton, to the _Pinna_, whose fibres grow in the sea on the coast
of Italy, and anchor the huge shell-fish to the rock or the sand. These
fibres are brought up by divers, and woven into beautiful fabrics. We
might repeat the tale of the crab which lives with this shell-fish,
and apprises his blind housekeeper of the approach of danger,--a tale
confirmed by ancient and modern naturalists,--for there are strange
doings in the sea as well as upon the land. We might also dilate upon
China grass, which is manufactured in the East into delicate fabrics.
But our limits compel us to defer these topics.