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pulled up by hand; if the plants are cut from the roots, or the roots removed later, the fibers will be
degraded in the process that separates pith and outer coating from the fibers of the phloem (EA 576). A
field of flax is harvested all at once, by a line of all available people crossing the field, although the shorter
plants and the longer are separated. Harvesting of flax for fiber is best done before the seeds are ripe;
harvesting later yields less flax of poorer quality. A field of hemp is harvested in two passes, the male
plants first and the female plants ten days or two weeks later.
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Different regions handle harvested flax somewhat differently, but in nearly all, the seeds arerippled free
immediately; the tops of the plants are pulled through a comb with the seeds falling onto a sheet below.
After that there is a drying period; the flax isstooked in the field to dry for a few days in the sun. In parts
of Flanders, the flax is then stored in a shed for a full year, but in most places, it is retted immediately.
Rettingis the way that theboon , the pith and the outer coating, is partially rotted to free the fibers.
Down-time, retting is often done in a pool dug near a stream. The length of time depends on the weather;
it takes at least ten days, and can take up to three weeks. The water left after retting cannot be discarded
into the stream, as it will have a detrimental effect on the fish, but can be spread over the fields as a
fertilizer (Moore 50). Up-time, retting is done in huge, temperature-controlled, indoor tanks; with the
temperature at a constant 80°F, retting takes about a week (EB14f 430).
When retting has progressed as far as it should, the flax is dried again, and the boon is broken, by means
of a hand-operatedbreaking box .Scutching , done with a board and a paddle, removes theboon
completely. Then the flax must behackled , combed, to separate theline flax , 20 to 30 inches long, from
the shortertow . (Line flax becomes strong linen thread; tow is used unspun for stuffing, or can be spun
into a softer, weaker thread.)
Up-time, all of these procedures, rippling through hackling, even drying, are performed by machine,
instead of by hand with simple tools. In both systems, the plants and the resulting fibers are kept as
parallel as possible.
After breaking, scutching, and hackling, the flax goes to the women of the area for spinning. Most of the
hemp will go to the men of therope walk ; a nineteenth-century man-of-war used 80 long tons of hemp,
the yearly product of 320 acres (Hartley 157). The longer fibers of hemp are not easily handled by distaff
and spinning wheel (Davenport,Spinning 98); only the shorter hemp fibers go for clothing.
Cotton.Harvesting cotton continues through much of the growing season, as each plant has flowers,
developing bolls, and ripe cotton all at once. The first harvester was developed in the 1850s; it stripped
the plants, leaving only the stalks. This was extremely wasteful, and required more hand labor to separate
the mature cotton from everything else. Immature ("dead") cotton cannot be spun and woven. It was not
until the 1940s that the modernspinner harvester was fully developed; it pulls the mature cotton, which is
expanding out of the bolls, free (EB14c 90H). The spinner designed for Upland cotton, which bursts
upward, cannot be used for Indian cotton, which spills downward.
Up-time, cotton is shipped with the seeds still present. Down-time, seeds are removed by hand right
after the cotton is picked. When the gin was first invented, it was used on the farm, because of the costs
of transportation cotton seed is two-thirds or more of the weight (Peake 19) and because there was
little use for cotton seed. Without modern oil-pressing machinery, cottonseed oil is somewhat toxic
(EB14a 615).
Three different cotton gins have been invented. The wire teeth gin invented by Eli Whitney, and the saw
gin improvement of it by Hodgen Holmes, damage thelint , especially lint of longer fibers, more than
roller gins do (EB11a 259 260). Some seeds are broken in ginning, and the bits often stay in the cotton,
needing to be removed later which is, with the full machine processing and handling of up-time, after it
is woven. Up-time, the Whitney-Holmes gin is still used for Indian cotton, which produces very short lint.
Cottonlinters , the very short fibers that coat the seeds of Indian and Upland cotton but not those of Sea
Island or Egyptian, will not be available. These were ignored until the second decade of the twentieth
century (Peake 18), when they were found to be useful in several industries (paper, rayon, and "Boom!").
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Silk.Up-time, cocoons that have set (about a week after being spun) are subjected to high heat, or
poisonous fumes, to kill the chrysalids before they can break out of the cocoons; they are stored until the
factory rep collects them. Down-time, reeling is done on the farm from "live" cocoons they are put into
very hot, but not boiling, water to soften the sericin enough to allow unwinding. Live cocoons produce
silk that is more lustrous; dead ones yield a more even yarn, better for power weaving (Hooper 33).
One silk fiber (abave of twobrin s of fibroin embedded in sericin) is only 1/3000 inch thick (Hooper 4).
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