I think that this poster is getting Canada and China confused! ;-) According to this:
http://www.ontariohempalliance.org/info/BastFibreinChina.pdf Today, China has emerged as the clear leader in the bast fibre textile processing industry for flax/linen, hemp and ramie, with flax as a major pillar of the Chinese textile industry. The Chinese have currently about 65-75,000 ha of flax fibre and 20,000 ha of hemp fibre field production. The predominant and largest end use of bast fibres in China is for textile with some new developments emerging in application to paper production. A Canuck, Sheridan the elder (who wishes we were big linen producers because the lovely stuff is so pricey here!) ________________________________ From: Elena House <exst...@gmail.com> To: Historical Costume <h-cost...@indra.com> Sent: Wednesday, September 30, 2009 7:37:26 PM Subject: Re: [h-cost] Viking alternate history--14thC/15thC Vinland? On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 5:35 PM, Kim Baird <kba...@cableone.net> wrote: > However, once they learned to weave from the Vikings, who knows what they > might have created? Look what the Navajo did once they got some sheep. Right now, Canada is by far the biggest producer and exporter of flax, so I bet that a Vinland industry would have taken off! Canada also produces a good deal of hemp, so between the two I think it's safe to guess that my Vinland fashionistas would have worn at least some linen. I don't think it would have taken more than a couple of centuries for sheep to spread across the Americas. I have a feeling they would have been a big hit with the locals, once all the technical aspects had been passed along. The Norse managed to travel pretty far in the other hemisphere, both by water and by land--I wonder how far they might go, to trade in the Americas? It wouldn't shock me to see some trade with South American indigenous people. -E House _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
