LECTURE

On THE PRODUCTION OF THE FLAX PLANT, and the various Modes of Preparing its Fibre for Manufacture, by JAMES MACADAM, JUN., Secretary to the Royal Society for the Production and Improvement of the Growth of Flax in Ireland.

The production of the flax plant, and the preparation of its fibre for manufacture, have latterly attracted increased attention, both at home and abroad, and the Council of the Society of Arts have deemed the subject worthy of a place in the present course of Lectures. This raw material, and the various textile fabrics manufactured from it, were largely illustrated in the Crystal Palace; the former being shown by England, Ireland, and Scotland, Belgium, France, Russia, Austria, the Zollverein States, Switzerland, Holland, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, and the United States of America; and the latter by Great Britain and Ireland, Belgium, France, Prussia, Saxony, Wurtemberg, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, and Italy.

I propose to divide my Lecture into two parts: 1. The production of flax throughout the world; 2. The different modes employed to obtain from the plant that fibre which is the aliment of one of the four great textile manufactures of the globe.

I believe that the fibre of the flax plant (Linum usitatissimum) was among the earliest substances adapted to the clothing of mankind, as we find in the Old Testament frequent references both to the plants and to the fabrics made from it. Mr. Baines, in his ‘History of the Cotton Manufacture,’ observes, that in the time of Joseph, 1700 years before the Christian era, it is recorded that Pharaoh arrayed himself in vestures of fine linen (Gen. xli. 42). Allusion is again made to the same manufacture two centuries later, in the time of Moses (Exod. xxxv. 25 and 35). So that linen appears to have been the national manufacture of Egypt, whose antiquity this industrial occupation, and leads us to infer that, at least 3500 years ago, the delicate stems of the flax plant waved on the banks of the Nile, and that the spindle and shuttle—or some substitutes for these implements—were busily plied among a swarming population of wearers of linen. Paintings representing the culture of the plant, have been found on the walls of sepulchres at Eleithias and Beni Hassan, in Upper Egypt; and the latter contains an illustration of a kind of rude loom: linen, in fact, appears to have been the only kind of clothing in Egypt until after the Orishanera. The Egyptians exported their ‘linen yarn’ and ‘fine linen’ to Israel, in the days of Solomon—2 Chron. i. 16; and Prov. vii. 16; there ‘finelinen’ to Tyre (Ezek. xxvii. 7); and the same fabric to Greece at the time of Herodotus; and under the Roman emperors they continued famous for the manufacture of linen and export of flax; and, indeed, up to this period linen was the chief article of clothing in all the countries west of the Indus.

The material of which the mummy-cloths consist was long a questio vexata among the learned; but the late Mr. Thompson, of Clitheroe, has set all disputation at rest by his microscopic investigations, which proved that they were all linen fabrics. The term byssus used by Herodotus, had been variously translated; but we must now conclude that this byssus of the ancients was linen. I have prepared drawings of the fibres of flax, and of the same in their manufactured state, as unravelled from the mummy-cloths, with other sketches of the fibres of cotton. It will be seen on comparing these, that flax, whether in the fibre or the yarn, appears in the form of transparent tubes, straight and cylindrical, and articulated or jointed, like the sugar-cane, although the tenacity of the fibre is not thereby impaired. The cotton filaments are flattened cylinders, twisted like a cork-screw, and without joints. It is a curious fact, that although the majority of the mummy-cloths are of coarse texture, some of them have been found of a fabric rivalling the finest cambric; while, at the present day, the flax of Egypt imported for our manufacture, is the coarsest flax of commerce, and cannot be made into yarn, even with all our modern ingenious mechanism, fitted for weaving into a web one-third as fine as the Egyptians, with their rudest appliances, upwards of 3000 years ago prepared as wrappers for their dead.

It is probable that the culture and manufacture of flax were carried from the East to Europe by the Phoenician merchants, or the Greek colonists of Egypt and Syria; and in Homer we find allusions to the manufacture of linen in Greece. Once introduced in Europe, it rapidly spread over countries whose soil and climate were congenial to its growth. The history and tales of every part of the Continent teem with references to it, as one of the most general and best-understood departments of domestic routine; and, at the present day, there is scarcely a nook of that Continent where the plant is not grown to a greater or less extent. The greatest development of the culture is between the forty-fourth and sixtieth parallels of latitude. North of those the climate is against its success, and south of them, although some is grown, the fibre is generally of such indifferent quality that the attention of the cultivator is chiefly directed to the production of seed.

At the head of all flax-growing countries stands Russia, whose vast superficies contain many favourable localities for its production. The average annual quantity furnished by Russia for export and home manufacture is about 150,000 tons, of which nearly one-half is exported, chiefly to Great Britain, and, in less quantity, to France, Belgium, and Ireland. The Baltic portion of the export is shipped from Riga, and the White Sea portion from Archangel. In the provinces about the Black Sea and Sea of Azov the plant is also cultivated to a great extent, but solely for the seed, the stems being used as fuel. Russian flax ranges from very coarse to medium quality, being now worth from £26 to £48 per ton. It is never fine, since the rapidity of growth during the short, hot summer, and the want of moisture in the climate, tend to make the fibre either wiry and harsh or else cottony, without the peculiar oiliness and glossiness of appearance, which are indications of a fibre easily divisible on the hackle, and capable of being spun to fine los. Among the many specimens of Russian flax in the Exhibition, I noticed some very silky, lustrous fibre from Vladimir, which was, however, very uneven in quality; also some immensely long from Esthonia.

In the peninsula of Scandinavia flax is, in all except the most northern districts, grown to a small extent for domestic manufacture, and some is exported. In Denmark, the climate being more favourable, better fibre can be obtained; and there has lately been an improvement in the quality, through more pains being taken with the details of culture and preparation.

Austria produces about 65,000 tons annually, chiefly in Bohemia, Galicia, Hungary, and Transylvania. About 1000 tons are annually exported, and some 800 tons are imported, for local manufacture, from other countries. The samples from Hungary and Transylvania shown in the Exhibition were above average, and not fine. Switzerland possesses a few spinning factories, and cultivates flax for their wants, as well as for the domestic manufacture of linen among the peasantry. The specimens of fibre exhibited by that country, were of coarse quality.

Throughout Germany a large quantity of flax is grown, especially in Silesia, Wurtemburg, and