190 Cultivation and Proper Management of Flax. 



has been tried and has utterly failed, the merchants who made the 

 attempt having' been obliged to give it up. Two crops, as similar 

 as possible on the foot, may be very dissimilar in their yield. Say 

 one is grown upon a very old pasture, or upon ground that never 

 produced flax previously ; the other upon strong well-tilled land, 

 that carried a similar crop some four or five years before. To 

 the eye both seem much alike. The best judge perhaps could 

 not tell which is the better crop, and the proprietor of the one 

 might expect as high a price from the manufacturer as the owner 

 of the other. Yet in reality the crop grown on the ground that 

 till a year ago had been an old pasture, is likely to turn out to 

 be twice as valuable as the other. This one stumbling-block was 

 fatal to the whole scheme. 



Moreover the expense of carting flax-straw to dams or rettories 

 at a great distance, and the difficulty of getting sufficient spread- 

 ing ground or drying apparatus for great quantities of steeped flax 

 in any one spot, are additional impediments that stand in the 

 way of the application of the theory. 



Steepint/. — Pits lor steeping should always have a clay Ijottom ; 

 all spa-water should be avoided, also water that comes off any 

 kind of mineral ore. Bog-water, if it comes from a clay bottom 

 and has no taint from decaying timber (which might discolour the 

 flax) is unobjectionable. This water makes the fibre what is 

 called blae in the north of Ireland, a colour that is highly prized 

 by the buyers and spinners. It is all the better if the dam be 

 filled with water several weeks before the flax is put in. The 

 action of the atmosphere softens the Avater, and the heat of the sun 

 warms it. This mellowed and almost tepid water acts rapidly 

 upon the woody stalk, and renders the fibre silky and oily. Cold 

 spring-water will take double the time, and after all will fail to 

 do the work anything like as well. No definite time can be 

 specified for watering. Much depends on the heat of the 

 weather, and much on the quality of the water. From D to 14 

 days is the average length of time. To take it out of the water 

 just at the nick of time is the nicest and most important piece of 

 management connected with the whole crop. The following is a 

 good test : lift a " beet " out of the middle of the dam, open it, 

 take up 5 or 6 stalks with both hands ; bend them as if to break 

 them across ; if they break freely, break them in tivo places about 

 6 inches apart, and try to pull out the wood from the centre of 

 the fibre ; if the wood comes away easily and clean, the flax is 

 watered ; if it still clings to the fibre with some degree of tena- 

 city, it will require to remain some time longer. Dams should 

 neither be too deep nor too broad. They are deep enough if 

 they receive one row of " beets " inserted on their butt-end at an 

 angle of 45 degrees, and hold a sufficiency of water to cover 



