Before 1830, they made paper with linen. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jo Ann Baxley" <teacherbaxley@earthlink.net> To: <CLANBOYD-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, August 14, 2005 9:42 PM Subject: [Boyd] Re: Flax and Hemp > Flax is a plant with long fibers and can be worked into linen. If you > visit historical farms and such there almost always is a set of combs > that were the tools to do this. Linen is a valuable fabric that would > take hard work to make. We call flax batchelor buttons now. Hemp is > turned into rope or twine. It can still be purchsed. It also has long > fibers and is woven into rope by twisting several strands together. We > had lots of this growing as a weed. Seems someone had the idea to have > farmers grow this to help the war effort in the 1940s. Indigo was > another crop that was used to make dyes and quite valuable. Think how > lucky we are these days. > > Jo Ann Patterson Baxley > teacherbaxley@earthlink.net > > > ==== CLANBOYD Mailing List ==== > RING OF BOYDS http://k.webring.com/wrman?ring=clanboydwebring&addsite > > http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=boyd-trees > > >