Report of the Flax and hemp commission
A United States Department of Agriculture commission report on flax and hemp, issued at Washington in 1865 for farmers, fiber manufacturers, and legislators seeking domestic substitutes for cotton. The plates are wood-engraved microscope views of single fibers: flat ribbons, twisted strands, and jointed filaments crossing each other on blank ground, shaded with fine parallel hatching that reads as abstract linear pattern when enlarged or repeated.
