Mr. Neighbor brought some of the fiber of this plant to Moscow to have it tested and ascertain if it will make cloth like linen. He said:
"I twisted up some of the dead stalks and it worked up into a very tough, long fiber. I showed that to a man who had spent years in working in a linen factory and asked him what it was and he declared it was linen and of excellent quality. I had difficulty in making him believe it is not linen fiber and he declared it would make the finest kind of linen and that a factory for its manufacture here would pay. I showed it to many persons who have seen the fiber from which linen is made and they all pronounced this linen fiber although all of them said it was of unusual length and strength. If it is what these people claim for it there seems to be no reason why we cannot produce linen here, for the plant will grow luxuriantly almost anywhere in the northwest."
Mr. Neighbor, who lives near Whelan, in Whitman county, Washington, a few miles from Moscow, wants the State College at Pullman and the University of Idaho, at Moscow, to investigate the matter and ascertain if linen can be made of this fiber. 