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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1851 Excerpt:...consisted of about 250,000 spindles. With the increase that has since taken place, and that now making, nearly 390,000 spindles will be in operation next year. The consumption of flax in the Irish factories in 1841 was estimated at 16,000 tons. On the same data, it will be next year about 25,000; being an increase of 9,000 tons. Taking 5 cwt. of flax as the average produce per statute acre, this increase would alone require an additiona breadth of 86,000 acres-being more than one-half of the entire Irish growth; while to supply the Irish flax-spinners would take 100,000 acres, being 30,000 more than the present average sowing. 'l'o extend the comparison over the United Kingdom, we find that while the import of foreign flax in the years 1840, 1841, and 1842, averaged annually 62,500 tons; in 1848, 1849, and 1850, to the 10th of October in each year, it averaged 83,800, an increase of 21,300 tons, that increase alone being nearly equal to the production of 84,600 acres. If, therefore, the large extent of the imports of foreign flax was dwelt upon in 1841, when the Society was formed, itis evident that the arguments in favour of increasing the extent of flax cultivation in Ireland, are strengthened precisely in the ratio of the increase which has since taken place. Your Committee would beg your attention to a fact which cannot be too frequently enforced on public attention, viz., that_while Ireland, at present, produces only about 60,000 acres of flax, to supply the existing demand in the United Kingdom, for the different products of the crop, nearly 500,000 acres would be annually required; and also, that, with the exception of a small proportion of the finer fiaxes of Belgium, the entire. of the foreign import could be replaced with Irish, to the great...