Vegetable substances: materials of manufactures / [Published under the superintendence of the Society of the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge]. [Anon].

  • Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (Great Britain)
Date:
1833
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vegetable substances: materials of manufactures / [Published under the superintendence of the Society of the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge]. [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    piece of wood, so that their bases nearly touch each other. This being firmly fixed on a beam of wood, two persons sit, one at each end, and taking up the handfuls of flax draw them repeatedly through the ripple ; in a very short time each handful is by this means entirely divested of all its leaves and pods. If the seed of the plants under operation is to be preserved, a large cloth is spread on the ground to receive the pods as they fall; these are then spread out in the sun, and when dry and hard the seeds are carefully sifted and winnowed from the husk. Those which separate spontaneously are reserved for sowing. The second and inferior sort is extensively used in the arts, and is known under the name of lintseed or linseed. The manner of obtaining, the oil will be noticed in another part of this volume. The delicate fibres of flax intended for cambric would be injured by the use of the ripple, and therefore the stalks are in that case divested of their seed, pods, and leaves, either by beating them with a wooden mallet, or by cutting them off with a wooden knife. The flax, after being rippled, is placed in water to dissolve the gummy sap, by which the bark adheres to the ligneous stalk; to cause maceration by pro- moting a slight fermentation of those parts which are not fibrous, and consequently to promote the more easy disengagement of the useful from the useless portion. This is called water-retting. A difference of opinion exists as to the superior efficacy of a running stream or a standing pool for the pur- pose. It is said that a running stream wastes the flax, while on the other hand it gives to it a greater degree of whiteness. Hemp and flax impart somewhat of a poisonous quality to the water in which they are immersed. It was for a long time asserted that if there were any