Excerpt from Flax Culture for the Seed and the Fiber, in the United States: With Special Reference to the States West of Pennsylvania
To American Farmers:
In submitting this pamphlet on Flax Culture, I ask your attention to a plain statement of facts. By ceasing from henceforth to neglect our own interests as we have done in the past, and by resolutely entering upon reforms in Flax raising, we thereby prepare the way for the development of the national linen industry which now is and will remain in its infancy so long as the necessary raw material must be imported from Europe, chiefly from Russia and Ireland, while we are destroying, or allowing to go to waste, valuable raw material every year by hundreds of thousands of tons.
The Flax fiber produced in the western states, has thus been annually destroyed in untold quantities, and has also been through careless and improper cultivation, rendered unfit for use by manufactories. By bestowing a little more care on our Flax crop, we might have annually added to the wealth of the community ten million dollars, taking the very lowest estimate of only $10.00 per acre on one million acres, which are every year under Flax in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas and Nebraska. One million acres ought to have produced $35,000,000 worth of raw material, and even this sum falls far short of the value of the product, as will be seen from the following: The aggregate acreage under flax in Europe is estimated to be about 3,344,300 acres, producing annually about 457,675 tons of clean Flax fiber. Therefore, proportionately, our western states should be capable of producing over 160,000 tons of said raw material, which, at the rate of $300.00 per ton, (supposing a fiber of good medium quality to be produced) would be worth $48,000,000.
Nor is this all. In addition to the above amount of Flax fiber, the countries of Europe annually produce immense quantities of Flax seed for sowing and crushing, thus further illustrating the glaring contrast between their perfect and rational system and our one-sided and primitive mode of Flax cultivation for seed only, and allowing the more valuable fiber to go to waste.
This is even a more powerful reason why we are bound to abandon the course we have followed hitherto, if our object is to earn the legitimate remuneration due to labor. Raising Flax seed was, no doubt, remunerative-enough some fifteen or twenty years ago, when its price was about treble what it is now, namely $2.65 to $2.85 per bushel; but we now get only 85 to go cents, and often the yield is only 5 to 8 bushels per acre. Therefore, we are positive losers, as this yield does not cover the cost of production. Surely, this should be sufficient inducement for us to at once abandon the present system, especially if, by a little better management, we can save both the seed and the fiber, so that, in case of comparative failure of the crop, we are always certain of a reasonable profit over and above cost of production.
A few words on the patriotic aspect of Flax culture for the fiber. As long as we do not produce Flax fiber of good quality suitable for manufacturing purposes, and in sufficient quantity to supply even the present limited home demand, there is little prospect of a satisfactory development of this industry in the United States, which is now confined to the production of twines, threads, and the coarser flaxen fabrics.
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