Note 30 — EXPERIMENTS

A linen fabric can be best told from cotton by holding it up to the light and examining the evenness of the threads. Cotton can be more easily spun level than flax, therefore threads that present considerable irregularities may be taken to be flax. In a union fabric the nap is usually cotton and the threads more regular than the filling (flax). The best linen is made from fine and fairly regular threads; common linen from coarse and irregular tow yarns. Linen is no more subject to weak places in weaving than cotton, although it is harder to bleach and may be weakened in this process. If each operation is not perfect the linen will become yellow in storage.