Flax-Culture in England and Ireland. 203 



per cwt. a good price, present prices being exceptional in con- 

 sequence of the dearth of cotton. He further states that the 

 practice of buying crops in the straw is regularly established in 

 Yorkshire, and answers very well. " No doubt," he writes, " the 

 purchaser runs some risk from the flax not turning out as well 

 as he expects, but such variations are more due to different seasons 

 than to different growths."* 



If the English farmer turns to growing flax, it may take him 

 some time to ^et a thorousfh insight into the bearinsj-s of this new 

 branch of his business : 1st, to ascertain the actual value of his 

 straw, and, so long as he is eclipsed by Flemish competitors, 

 to make out Avhy it is inferior ; and 2ndly, to get for it, with 

 all its variations, and uncertainties, a fair market-price. Such 

 considerations naturally indicate the importance of a healthy 

 competition in the market for raw flax, a point which it may 

 not be so easy to secure in this as in other branches of 

 trade. 



If English farmers should find that the Irish system of 

 selling the fine flax rather than the straw is more remunerative 

 in the long-run, but that individual action has many draw- 

 backs, they may be tempted to fonn associations among them- 

 selves for carrying on the flax through its first stage of manu- 

 facture ; and the success of two modern enterprises in their hands, 

 viz., the Blood-manure Company and the Islington Hall Com- 

 pany, would give some encouragement to such a scheme. A flax- 

 retting Company would, however, in one important respect stand 

 in a different relation to agricultural shareholders from that occu- 

 pied by a Manure Company ; for it would have to buy raw pro- 

 duce of them, not sell to them the manufactured article. Now, 

 whilst sales to shareholders are beneficial, and have a tendency to 

 keep up the quality of the goods sold, purchases from them pre- 

 sent a more doubtful aspect, and speaking with a recollection 

 of the surprise I have felt at the prices made by the barley 

 grown on the home-farm of a large brewer, I confess I should 

 not envy the Manager who had to buy an inferior crop from 

 an influential Director. 



Apart from such warnings as these, it is but natural that 

 English farmers, with modern facilities, and the modern spirit of 

 enterprise, should form associations to secure to themselves the 

 full value of their flax, in the fibre, if not in the straw, and at the 

 same time to fathom and prove their shortcomings as growers, 



* Mr. Marshall adds that they vise a sort of clover-drill which distributes the 

 seed very evenly ; for broad-cast sowing does not answer except the sower is 

 accustomed to sowing linseed. 



