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color, oily to the feel, and at the same time Aveighty. The seed from 

 Holland not only ripens sooner, but also yields a greater quantity of fibre 

 than most others. American seed produces a common fine flax ; Riga 

 seed a coarser sort of flax, but a greater quantity of seed than any other, 

 and is suitable to a greater variety of localities. Riga seed, from the 

 circumstance of being generally produced from land of inferior quality, 

 when employed in any other than its native locality, finds an improved 

 situation, and consequently on most soils produces a luxuriant crop, 

 inclining, however, to rankness, but with a great abundance of seed ; 

 this seed, when re-sown on the same land, after the interval of a year, 

 produces crops yielding the best qualities of " fibre," though for subse- 

 quent re-sowing it becomes degenerated. The rapid progress of agricul- 

 ture at the present day, renders it impossible to fix at what period in the 

 rotation of crops that of flax should occur, though the general impres- 

 sion is, or rather was, once in seven to nine years. Experience has, how- 

 ever, proved thai it is never advantageous to re-sow the seed upon the 

 land that has produced it more than once or twice. 



In preparing land for the growth of flax, the great object should be to 

 render it perfectly fine and mellow. With this view, where grass land 

 is to be prepared direct for this crop, it should be broken up in the autumn, 

 and left exposed to the atmosphere until the early part of the following 

 year, when it should be pulverized and broken down by heavy harrowing, 

 and then in the course of a week or two ploughed again, in which state it 

 may remain till the time for putting in the seed, when another very light 

 harrowing should be given, and ploughing performed afterwards with a 

 light furrow. But as the expense of preparing grass land direct for flax 

 may frequently be too great, it is desirable that some other crops should 

 intervene, of such plants as do not occupy the land long, and which are 

 benefitted by frequent stirring of the earth whilst they grow — such as 

 beans, peas, turnips, &c., because repeated stirrings are required to ren- 

 der the mould sufliciently fine and loose, and to help to kill the weeds, 

 which would otherwise do great damage to the flax. It is asserted that 

 the Livonians, when they clear wood-lands, burn the wood upon them, 

 and in this state prefer them to any other kind of soil for flax crops. If 

 the land be stiS", it should be exposed to the winter frosts to moulder it, 

 and loosen its parts. In the month of February, if the weather be not 

 00 w et, some very rotten dung (if artificial manures are not used) 

 should be laid on, and immediately covered over with the mould. The 



