| Show THE opportunity TY OF THE WEST I 1 in the prodigal waste of flax straw ten million tons of which Bc Pe cording to ro the department of agriculture are burned every year on the farms of 0 the country there is a marked analogy between the position of many western farmers of today to day and the southern planter before ell whitney evolved his cotton gin in 1793 up to that time I 1 cotton now king of the worlds textile industry had little apparent value as flax straw now has on many farms it took a whole day to separate the seed from one pound of the clean white sta pie making its cultivation for co commercial mirter uses an impracticable and expensive business enterprise in which few planters dared to embark so little cotton was raised in the states donth sonth of mason and dixons line that the british customs officials thinking they were acre being deceived by false invoices seized the first eight bales of it entering liverpool in 1784 on tile the ground that such a quantity could not have been raised in this country in a single year it is difficult to conceive this in the face of the figures for this year which ina indicate acate a iii arvest p of f a pronima proxima p pro xIma tely il baa bale s f to whitney the south guth owes owe its present predominance in this field his invention aside from helping to pay off the mouths debts has enabled it to d develop an industry which today produces a product of an aggregate annual value of and has given uncle sam the best of it in the international balance of trade tor for years we are the largest producers of flax but singular as it may seem russia which is third in point of lax flax growing importance supplies the straw from which worth of linen annually imported into this country is made in ireland and scotland there being no commercial mar ket for most of the crop after its seed has been extracted western farmers as a rule have been forced to burn me straw in order to set get rid of it As with v ith the cotton gin in and reaper two inventions which have contributed more than any other oilier factors to the up building of the p prosperity ro of the united states and won for it its present world wide agricultural preeminence pre eminence amerlean american genius has solved the problem ot of how to turn this waste flax straw into profitable use like whitney who iwas was a massachusetts school teacher benjamin gushing cushing madge the discoverer of the oxford processes which will make commercially available in the manufacture of american linen this heretofore valueless product of oc the western farm Is a nati native ve of 0 new england in their economic effect on the linen market of the world the 0 oxford processes which transform the flax into fabric in from one to two days a feat requiring from 20 to 30 weeks to accomplish abroad are as important in their relation to flax as whitney Whit Is gin was to cotton they hold out to I 1 the western farmer the promise of 0 a new source ot of revenue commensurate in value with that of the cotton gin and foreshadow shadow tor for the establishment ot of a new american industry of the first order which experts believe will some day wrest from england its centuries old predominance of the linen field and rank in importance with that of cotton in the evolution of this new american industry utah which has not been conspicuous as a lax flax growing state although favored with a soil and climate suitable for its profitable cultivation should share to theowest th ewest it presents I 1 an opportunity pregnant with potential possibilities and to the nation one of tar far teaching significance for one it means prosperity and for the other increased prestige |
