200 Flax -Culture in Enjland and Ireland. 



throug'h a system of heav}- rollers, wliile a current of fresh water 

 is playing upon it, by which means the glutinous matter is sepa- 

 rated from the fibre. This operation creates the chief demand 

 for water, which need not be soft. In ten minutes the rollers 

 have done their work, and the straw is laid on grass simply to 

 dry ; as soon as this is effected it is stored in a dry chamber. 

 From thence it is taken as required, and passed under heavy 

 ribbed rollers, to break the woody fibre. It is then slightly 

 cleansed, and tied up in convenient handfuls by girls, called 

 " strikers," as preparatory to passing into the scutcher's hands. 

 Seventy girls in the strikers' room prepare the supply for 56 

 scutching-mills. 



The arrangement of the " scutch ing-room " (188 feet long, by 

 31 feet broad) deserves more particular description. 



A long shaft, actuated by the steam-engine, runs the whole 

 length of the room, and sets in motion the mills, which revolve, 

 like windmills, at right angles to the shaft, the end of their^arms 

 ])eing furnished with wooden beaters, which in form resemljle the 

 blade of a razor. 



An iron partition runs lengthways down the room, so placed 

 that the ends of the beaters as they revolve pass through vertical 

 openings left in this partition. On the one side of the partition 

 we have the axis and chief j)art of each of the mill-wheels, and 

 on the floor the shives, or shoves, which are carried away by the 

 beaters. On the other side, in a scries of three-sided iron boxes, 

 stand the scutchers, with a long wooden table and a passage 

 lipyond them. The beaters belonging to each compartment are 

 further boxed off by a low false partition, almost in contact with 

 them, having a horizontal slit at a convenient height. Through 

 this slit the scutcher inserts his handful of flax, and by dexterous 

 manipulation often repeated, secures the removal of every particle 

 of the wot)dy covering from the flax fd^re. The men generally 

 work in pairs, the less experienced hand giving a preparatory 

 dressing, the other finishing the work. 



An accurate record is kept every week of the work which each 

 hand turns out, and of the amount of material which he consumes 

 to produce a given quantity of fine fibre. 



A certain standard is assumed, sav, that from the flax already 

 shrunk by retting, drying, and breaking, one-fifth of fine fibre 

 should be produced ; shortcomings or improvements on this 

 standard are then recorded. 



A good hand will turn out 40 stone per week, inferior hands 

 about 30, novices less than that. When both quantity and 

 quality of workmanship are taken into account it is evident that 

 wages inust assume a wide range, and the skilful and careful 

 workman meet with much encouraffement. 



