FLAX. 105 



land (accorcling to McAdam, in the Royal Agricultural Journal) 12.21 pounds 

 of alkalies, and 5.94 pounds of phosphoric acid, and the latter taking (accord- 

 ing to Way) 7.5 pounds alkalies, and 6.9 pounds acid. This would show it to 

 require more potash than -vvheat. But there is a consideration that should not 

 be ignored here. Wheat becomes food for man, and is generally lost entirely 

 to the soil ; flax is largely composed of woody structure, which is returned to 

 the soil. The seeds contain much of the remaining inorganic matter ; the fibre 

 is mainly obtained from the atmosphere, but about five pounds of mineral mat- 

 ter existing in the fibre from a ton of flax ; so that if the refuse or cake is fed 

 to cattle, most valuable manure is obtained, and flax may assume a place in the 

 rotation of crops with positive advantage to the soil it occupies. 



It Avould be a positive benefit in another respect. It is a crop that abso- 

 lutely compels clean culture. It is an extirpator of weeds. It is usually 

 grown after a root crop, and in Holland and Belgium hand culture is employed 

 to keep doAvn the weeds. If careful culture is given it, and the cake or its 

 equivalent is fed upon the farm, flax will not be found to be either exhaustive 

 or unprofitable. 



If grown only for fibre, and cut when in flower, it will be seen to be less 

 exhaustive than wheat. 



I ROTATION- 



The Belgians, Dutch, and Irish are very systematic in their rotations of 

 crops, as we are not ; they obtain one flax crop in seven or ten years, usually 

 after a "corn" crop, generally oats, such grain crop invariably following grass 

 or clover. It is held to be an error to make flax follow a potato crop, though 

 it was often grown in New England after corn and potatoes, and did well on 

 old pasture land, well broken, planted in potatoes, and afterwards sown with 

 flax. If planted for the fibre, it is essentially a green crop, and should not, as 

 a general rule, immediately follow one. Hoed crops best precede it, because 

 likely to secure clean culture. 



Double cropping is sometimes practiced with flax, which requires only about 

 ninety days to perfect it. Carrots are frequently sown in drills with it in Bel- 

 gium, and being carefully weeded with the flax, they are in vigorous condition 

 when the flax is removed, and come rapidly to maturity. Again, after the 

 harvesting of flax, some farmers in Ireland plough and harrow in a mixture of 

 guano and gypsum, and sow with rape. In this country barley has frequently 

 been sown with flax. One instance is recollected in which two bushels ot 

 barley and one of flax were put into an acre, the product harvested together 

 and threshed by machine, yielding thirty bushels of barley and fifteen of flax. 

 Other land on the same farm, of equal fertility, yielded but thirty bushels of 

 barley alone. In another instance the past season one bushel of seed so\fn 

 with barley over five acres produced fifteen bushels of seed without apparent 

 injury to the main crop. These double crops are only desirable in a labor and 

 land-saving point of view, and Avhen additional fertilizers make good the ex- ' 

 cessive draught on fertility. With niggardly supplies of manure the farmer 

 would lose by it ; with skilful and high farming, he might grow two crops at 

 the cost of cultivating one, and thus save by it. 



PREPARATION OF THE SOIL. 



The soil should be as fine, deep, and clean as possible. It should, of course, 

 be ploughed only when free from excessive moisture. The amount of plough- 

 ing and harrowing must depend not only upon the nature, but upon the con- 

 dition of the soil, and should stop only when the ground is in good tilth. On 

 a very friable loam one ploughing might answer, two would be better ; on very 

 stiff soils three are received. It is well to plough stubble in the fall, throwing 



