280 REPORT—1852. 
of water to flow over the surface of the pond from the supplying stream, as, 
when it is allowed to remain, the colour of the flax is found to be injured. 
Various methods are resorted to in this and other flax-growing countries, to 
ascertain the proper period for the removal of the flax from the pond. Thus 
the Silesian steepers take some stalks of the Hax from the pits, and place them 
on the surface of the water. If the stalks sink they remove the flax, but if 
they swim they allow the steeping to continue for some days longer ; while 
the Irish farmer, day after day, when the fermentation has fairly commenced, 
anxiously tests the progress of decomposition by drawing a few stalks from 
one of the flax bundles and breaking them across in two places, about two 
inches apart. If he can readily pull away the central woody column without 
tearing the filaments of bast which surround it, he considers that the period 
has arrived for removing it from the pit. 
It is easy to perceive that the peculiar series of changes which facilitate 
the breaking up of the various organic compounds which compose the struc- 
ture of the flax plant, must, in our fickle climate, where so many sudden 
alterations of temperature occur, be liable to frequent disturbance, and 
that the progress of the fermentation, in the shallow steeping-pools, must 
be exceedingly irregular and uncertain. It is not, indeed, to be wondered, 
that, notwithstanding the closest supervision, the most experienced steepers 
should frequently be deceived, and that one part of the flax should be too 
much decomposed while another part has not properly experienced the altera- 
tions which facilitate the complete separation of the valuable material. 
The disagreeable odour evolved from a flax-pool must be familiar to those 
who have travelled in the north of Ireland in the steeping season, and the 
black hue which the streams in some country districts acquire at that period, 
from the refuse waters of the pools being allowed to fall into them, excites the 
surprise of strangers. 
It is interesting to discover, amongst those wonderful records, not merely 
of the military achievements, but of the rural occupations and manufactures 
of the ancient inhabitants of Egypt, which have come down to us on the walls 
of their temples, that the steeping of flax and its preparaticn for their “fine 
linen,” was conducted nearly, we may conclude, in the same manner as by our 
farmers at the present time. The drawings exhibit to us large wooden vats 
for containing the flax-straw, and men are represented carrying water to fill 
them. 
To render the history of the crop complete, it is necessary to give some 
account of the treatment which the flax undergoes on its removal from the 
steeping-pool. I shall confine myself to a description of the ordinary system 
of this country. The first operation to which it is subjected is what is tech- 
nically termed grassing, which consists in spreading the steeped straw in thin 
and even layers upon pasture ground, for from six to ten days, according to 
the season, frequently turning it during its exposure, that the air may act 
equally on every part of it. By grassing the eremacausis of the woody matter 
and loosening of the fibre is still further promoted, and the colour of the flax 
also improved. After grassing, the straw is either stored up in stacks, for 
subsequent treatment, or at once subjected to the action of machines which 
break up and remove the brittle woody parts. To break up the woody matters 
so as to facilitate their removal in the ordinary practice of the farm, a simple 
machine, termed “the break,” is employed. It consists of two wooden frames, 
each of which is furnished on one side with a number of parallel angular bars, 
so arranged, that, when the frames are connected together by a hinge, the 
angular surfaces of the bars on one frame are received into the hollows formed 
between the bars of the other. One of the frames is permanently fixed on 

