Plant fiber

“ Flax is grown for fiber in Russia, Belgium, Italy, France, Holland, Ireland and Egypt. Little flax fiber is produced in the United States. Plants for fiber production are straight stemmed, while the varieties grown for seed have many branches. Flax seeds are produced in Russia, India, Argentina and the United States. Plants harvested for fiber are pulled up by the root in order to obtain the greatest possible length. The fiber is separated from the stalk of the plant by retting, a process of partial decay, breaking and scutching to remove the woody parts and hackling or combing. ”

“ There really is no perceptible reason why the fiber should become weaker through fructification, which simply consists in the fact of the contents of the vascular cells changing into soluble matter, and gradually oozing away, the consequence of which is that the cells of the fiber are not replenished. These, on the contrary, acquire additional strength with the age of the plant, because the emptied cells cling so firmly together, by means of a certain resinous deposit, that it is impossible to obtain them unbroken without a great deal of trouble. ”

“ From the bast fibers of the stem of this herb linen cloth is made.
Flax grown for fiber.
Vegetable Oils.—Some of the same plants which give fiber also produce oil. Cotton seed oil pressed from the seeds, linseed oil from the seeds of the flax plant, and coconut oil (the covering of the nut here producing the fiber) are examples.
Some Harmful Green Plants.—We have seen that on the whole green plants are useful to man. There are, however, some that [Pg 128] are harmful. For example, the poison ivy is extremely poisonous to touch. ”

“ In India it is chiefly for the resin, "haschisch, churrus, bhang." (That was the drug used by the Count of Monte Cristo.) In Russia it is for the seed and the fibre that the plant is cultivated, and in France, Italy, and Austria the fibre seems to be the most important product.
Some of the plants produce only stamens or male flowers. The fibre given by these is stronger and more tenacious than that of the female plant, which, however, is finer and more supple. The fibre obtained from the cold northern districts of Russia is said to be the strongest of all. ”

“ Should a foreign substance, such as a leaf, intervene between it and that object, the fibres lengthen until they extend beyond the impediment; and then they fix on the desired object, and cease to grow.
These fibres, however; are not true roots—a branch with only such roots, would not grow if planted in the earth—they are mere holdfasts, and the plant does not receive any portion of its nourishment through them. The upper part of the plant, where it has mounted above the wall and become arborescent, is wholly devoid of such fibres, which never appear but when they have some object to fix upon. ”

“ Culture in Moss-fibre.—While Hyacinths, differing from Daffodils and Tulips, are perhaps relatively better in pots of soil than in bowls of moss-fibre, they may still be grown successfully in bowls provided a fairly deep receptacle is chosen and care is taken to avoid making the fibre hard. With a shallow bowl and very firm fibre it may be found that the roots strike upward and the plant does not get that abundant supply of moisture which is essential to its welfare. ”

“ Manilla [3] yields the strongest of all fibres. Jute, which is the fibre or inside bark of an Indian plant (Corchorus capsularis) , yields a strong fibre, but is very difficult to bleach white. Esparto fibre holds an intermediate place between the fibres just described and those of wood and straw.... The fibre of straw is short, pointed, and polished, and cannot of itself make a strong paper. The nature of wood fibre depends, as may readily be supposed, upon the nature of the wood itself. Yellow pine, for example, yields a fibre long, soft, and flexible, in fact very like cotton ”

“ In the case of Endogens, the fibres are imbedded or enveloped in succulent, fleshy, or pulpy stems, or leaves; and in the case of Exogens, the fibre is combined with, and attaching to, wood, or woody matter, such extraneous substances or matters constituting, more or less, a considerable portion both of the weight and bulk of the plant even when matured. ”

“ The leaves have the same structural system as the agaves—that is, they are composed of a cellular mass through which the fibers extend, and when the epidermis and pulpy matter are eliminated the residue is a soft, silklike filament, the value of which has long been recognized. Only fifty pounds of this fiber can be obtained from a ton of leaves, but, as the product would doubtless command double the price of Sisal hemp, its production would be profitable. How to secure this fiber cheaply is the problem. ”

“ He is too ignorant to perceive that the fibre properly treated is of higher value. It is quite possible, as is often claimed, that there is a difference in plants, some giving a whiter fibre than others. But it is generally conceded that if the natives would cut the plant only at maturity, cleanse the fibre under a toothless knife the same day, place the strips in a clean place, and sun-dry at once, the waste would be materially lessened, and there would be little third-class matter.
In other words, what the hemp-planter needs are honest, reliable hands and an efficient manager. ”

“ If the fibre has been properly moistened there will be no need to give water until the shoots are an inch or so long, but the fibre must not be allowed to go dry, or the flower-buds become ‘blind.’ The surface of the fibre should always look moist, but if too much water has been given the bowl may be held carefully on its side so that the surplus water can drain away. As the growth increases more water will be required and all the light possible must be given to insure sturdy foliage. ”

“ The last of the vegetable materials is woody fibre; it is the hardest part of plants. The chief source from which this substance is derived is wood, but it is also contained, more or less, in every solid part of that plant. It forms a kind of skeleton of the part to which it belongs, and retains its shape after all the other materials have disappeared. It consists chiefly of carbon, united with a small proportion of salts, and the other constituents common to all vegetables. ”

“ No; the active part of the root is always, I believe, a fibre. But there is often a provident and passive part—a savings bank of root—in which nourishment is laid up for the plant, and which, though it may be underground, is no [32] more to be considered its real root than the kernel of a seed is. When you sow a pea, if you take it up in a day or two, you will find the fibre below, which is root; the shoot above, which is plant; and the pea as a now partly exhausted storehouse, looking very woful, and like the granaries of Paris after the fire. ”

“ We have seen that all the elements which are necessary to the production of the woody fibre, and of the other organic parts of the plant, may be derived either from the air, from the carbonic acid and watery vapour taken in by the leaves, or from the soil, through the medium of the roots. In the air, however, only rare particles of inorganic or earthy matter are known to float, and these in a solid form, so as to be unable to enter by the leaves; the earthy matter which constitutes the ash, therefore, must be all derived from the soil. ”

“ By repeated scraping in this way the soft cellular matter which surrounds the fibre is removed, and the fibre so cleaned has only to be hung up to dry in the open air, when, without further treatment, it is ready for use. Each stock yields, on an average, a little under 1 ℔ of fibre; and two natives cutting down plants and separating fibre will prepare not more than 25 ℔ per day. The fibre yielded by the outer layer of leaf-stalks is hard, fully developed and strong, and used for cordage, but the produce of the inner stalks is increasingly thin, fine and weak. ”

“ All insight not only into the chemical processes in the nutrition of plants, but also into the mechanical laws of the movement of the sap, and generally into the whole internal economy of plants, depends on a knowledge of the fact, that it is only the cells which contain chlorophyll, and therefore in the higher plants the leaves chiefly as consisting largely of such cells, which have the power of converting the gaseous food supplied by the atmosphere into the substance of the plant with the aid of the materials taken up from the soil. ”

“ These fibers constitute the cotton of the market, which finds so many important uses in human economy. Of course primarily nature intended these fibers for the special use of the plant itself; being a means of aiding in the distribution of the seeds, and no doubt also serving as a protection against being eaten by animals, as the dense, more or less intertwined growth of insipid, tenacious fibers constitute anything but a tempting morsel. Man, by his ingenuity and skill, has been enabled to utilize this product of nature in his own behalf. ”

“ The second group—fibers of simple cellular structure—comprises surface fibers, including the down or hairs surrounding exogenous seeds or their envelopes; the hairlike growth found on stems, leaves, and buds; fibrous material produced in the form of epidermal strips from the leaves of palms, etc.; and false fibrous material—mosses and leaves used for packing, and certain fungous growths. It is the consideration of these useful native fibers that makes it possible to enumerate a thousand species of fibrous plants, while the world's commercial fibers would hardly reach a total of fifty species. ”

“ The best qualities are of a clear whitish-yellow colour, with a fine silky lustre, soft and smooth to the touch, and fine, long and uniform in fibre. When the fibre is intended for goods in the natural colour it is essential that it should be of a light shade and uniform, but if intended for yarns which are to be dyed a dark shade, the colour is not so important. The cultivated plant yields a fibre with a length of from 6 to 10 ft., but in exceptional cases it has been known to reach 14 or 15 ft. in length. The fibre is decidedly inferior to flax and hemp in strength and tenacity ”

“ If we make a section of the stalk of a leaf, we shall find that in some cases the woody fibers are collected in the middle, while in others there are several distinct bundles, separated by cellular parenchyma. My first idea was that each of the primary ribs of a leaf might represent a separate woody fiber in the leaf-stalk, so that leaves with a single bundle of woody fibers would be pinnate; those with several distinct bundles, palmate. ”

“ So simple and rapid is the process, that a leaf, in a quarter of an hour after being cut from the plant, may be in a state fit for the purposes of the manufacturer, as a glossy, white fibre, with its strength unimpaired by any process of maceration, which, by inducing partial putrefaction, not only materially injures the strength of flax, but also renders it of a dingy color. ”

“ It has been shown that an active green leaf, on an August day, can absorb eight times as much radiant energy as would be required to assimilate all the carbon dioxide present in the air over its surface. No land plant, under normal conditions, develops supplementary pigments in [Pg 254] order to utilize other than the parts of the spectrum which are absorbed by chlorophyll and its associated pigments.
But deep-sea plants show quite a different phenomenon of pigment development. Water is a blue liquid. ”

“ There is a considerable list of plants, however, which are the subject of frequent inquiry, but which will never be utilized commercially as long as other more useful fibers hold the market. These for the most part produce bast fiber, and the farmer knows them as wild field growths or weeds. They are interesting in themselves, and many of them produce a fair quality of fiber, but to what extent they might be brought into cultivation, or how economically the raw material might be prepared, are questions the details of which only experiment can determine. ”

“ In our own country it would be possible to enumerate twenty species of plants that are recognized as American weeds, the fibers of which could be employed as hemp, flax, or jute substitutes were these materials unobtainable, besides half as many structural fiber plants similar to the agave, the products of which could be employed as cordage fiber substitutes in the same manner. Many of these uncultivated plants have been known to the aborigines for years, possibly for centuries, as we find their fiber, produced in varied forms of rude manufacture, in ancient tombs or other burial places. ”

“ Cellulose, or woody fiber, is the basis of all vegetable cell walls. Cotton fiber represents almost pure cellulose. From it are made paper and woven tissues. In paper manufacture, woody fiber is made into a pulp, washed, bleached, filtered, hot- pressed, and sometimes glazed. Parchment paper, vegetable parchment, is made by dipping unglazed paper for half a minute into cold dilute H2SO4, 1 part H2O, 2 1/2 parts H2SO4, and then washing. The fiber, by chemical change, is thus toughened. The cell walls of wood are impure cellulose ”

“ With much trouble, and by long processes, flax will receive a few dark dingy colors: all light and brilliant ones it wholly resists; they do not enter the fibre, but merely dry upon it externally, and afterwards easily peel, or rub off,—in short, it may be said to be painted, and not dyed.
The preparation of the pine-fibre is exceedingly simple. If [Pg 186] a leaf of this plant be examined, it will be found to consist of an assemblage of fibres running parallel from one extremity of the leaf to the other, embedded in the soft pabulum. ”