Country Life ENGLISH COTTON.
On the Suffolk estates of two well-known landowners—and in other-places—is being grown a plant, given the rather silly name of Erbifex. It is a discovery for which an economic future is being confidently promised by a number of people, experts and other. I saw last week, not only the plant itself, growing luxuriantly enough, but a display of its manu- factured virtues in order of refinement : first the stem, then the stem " retted " as flax growers would say, that is, the stem minus pith and bark ; the various stages of the carded fibre, of which the last exactly resembles fine cotton. Beside this were shown also little examples of the by-products, including shives " made out of the pith. Erbifex is in short a new cotton plant that will grow in English soil. Whatever may be its deficiencies there is no doubt at all that good cotton can be manufactured out of it without any costly process.
* * * *
Previous page
