Flax-Culture in England and Iiehind. 201 



Recent improvements have added materially to the value of 

 the. refuse derived from this first operation. 



It is now taken to tlie " carding-room," and passed round a 

 large carding-drum begirt with lesser carding-wheels working 

 one into the other. These teazers, bristling with short metal 

 pegs, which interlace as they revolve, sever most of the re- 

 maining fibre from the wood, so that by the aid of two such sets 

 of wheels a second-class fibre is produced, worth 20/. per ton. 



The refuse from this second operation undergoes yet a third 

 process, which produces a material which paper-makers purchase 

 at 6/. per ton. 



The residue is simply shives, or shoves, but these have virtue 

 enough in them to furnish all the fuel required by the boiler of 

 an engine capable of working up to 90 horse-power ; they con- 

 stitute about two-third of the flax-straw as originally delivered. 



We thus see that in Suffolk there is a well-established system 

 of flax management, under which the farmer is content to harvest 

 his flax and [sell it in the straw in the autumn. Yet Mr. Brown, 

 according to Irish experience, characterises such a system as im- 

 practicable. 



The climate of Ireland probably offers an impediment to such a 

 course, to which Mr. Brown has not adverted. In our drier dis- 

 tricts, the straw stands in the stack for two or three months, and 

 dries and improves the while ; in a more rainy and damp 

 country it is desirable to get it into steep as quickly as possible, 

 for it might blacken if stacked. Here, then, we see a physical 

 ground of difference which will not be easily surmounted. 



But Mr. Brown rests his case chiefly on the extreme difficulty 

 of rightly estimating the value of the produce in its raw state, 

 and consequently of maintaining a good understanding between 

 the buyer and the seller, if the produce is marketed in such a 

 form. This objection cannot be disposed of at once, and 

 suggests several points for investigation, and much matter for 

 reflection. 



In the first place, might not the farmer, without meddling with 

 the bulk of his crop, I'ett a sample, and sell according to that 

 sample, legulating his own demands and guiding the merchant's 

 judgment by its apparent quality? for otherwise he is as much 

 or even more in the dark, than when he buys or sells a crop of 

 corn standing. 



Next let us consider in the rough how the position of the 

 Suffolk farmer, who, on an average, sells his ton and a half of 

 flax-straw, the produce of an acre, to the works for 6Z. 155., differs 

 from that of a successful Irish grower who carries his produce 

 throuffh the first stag-e of manufacture. Assumine" that the latter 



