604 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



for that reason it requires its nutritive materials to be in such 

 a form that they are easily assimilable ; which means that the 

 application of manure can be made profitably only after a 

 thorough knowledge of the land has been acquired. 



Flax is said to be a potash-feeding plant, requiring a good 

 supply of this soil constituent together with lime. Certainly 

 it does appear that this crop grows better on the new " Polder " 

 land in Holland than it does on the old, there being more 

 lime and potash in the soil recently reclaimed from the sea. 



The place which flax is most suited to occupy in the scheme 

 of crop rotation is of course dependent upon the soil, upon 

 what is the most marketable produce and upon other varying 

 circumstances. It is certainly an unwise practice to grow flax 

 frequently on the same land, because a condition of soil sickness, 

 known as " flax-sickness," sets in. Where the soil is rather 

 heavy, it is sometimes made to carry two or more crops 

 between a fdung manure and a flax crop : for instance, in 

 Friesland the land is well dunged for potatoes and the next 

 year sugar-beet is brought on by artificial manures ; in the 

 third year oats are grown with artificial manures ; in the 

 fourth, a suitable dressing of artificial manure is given for 

 a flax crop. 



A very general practice in all countries is to sow flax after 

 oats or at any rate after some crop which will leave the land 

 as far as possible free from weeds. When the soil is poor in 

 nitrogen, the last oat crop is sown with clover and a clover 

 crop taken before flax is sown ; but where the soil is not 

 deficient in nitrogen, leguminous crops are kept well removed 

 from flax and a crop of chicory is taken between oats and flax. 

 Many people in Russia and Holland hold the opinion very 

 strongly that it is best to grow flax on land which has been 

 two or three years under grass. 



It is probable that the conditions under which flax is grown 

 at the present time are not at all natural to the plant : the 

 production of tall, straight stems, with little seed and much 

 fibre, having been brought about by long cultivation under 

 particular conditions. The object of the flax-grower is to 

 produce long, uniform, slender stems carrying as much fibre as 

 possible and as little woody material as is compatible with 

 proper stem rigidity. 



The actual growing period of flax extends over only about 



