CHAPTER X 

 FLAX 



FLAX 'is the oldest of cultivated fibre plants, 

 and, until the growing of cotton became the great 

 agricultural industry of the South, it was the most 

 important of the world's fibre crops. Only within 

 the last century has flax surrendered first place to 

 cotton, though both plants have furnished clothing 

 to civilized man ever since he began to demand 

 something different from the skins of wild beasts. 

 Cotton has the advantage of being cheaper than 

 flax to raise and to prepare for weaving into cloth. 



Wild flax probably grew on the hillsides of As- 

 syria and in the Nile Valley before it was brought 

 into cultivation. Nowhere does it grow in a wild 

 state to-day, unless we count the roadside flax 

 escaped from fields. It was grown and cloth 

 woven of its fibres, in ancient times, as the earliest 

 records prove. The mummies of early Egyptian 

 tombs were wrapped in linen cerements, and the 

 flax plant was carved on the tombs. The Bible 

 describes the royal splendor of kings, clothed in 



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