FIBRE PLANTS 305 



demand to make flaxseed poultices. A single seed 

 dropped into the eye will invariably capture the 

 cinder that no other means has been able to re- 

 move. The gum that coats the seed swells when 

 wet so that a poultice takes up four times as much 

 space as the dry seeds did. More commonly, the 

 meal is used, cooked to a mush, and applied as 

 hot as can be borne to painful swellings, which it 

 relieves by keeping moist and warm. 



The growing of flax in America to-day is chiefly 

 for its seed; the making of linen from the fibre is 

 not yet profitable. The farmer threshes his flax, 

 and sells the seed to his local grain merchant, who 

 sells it to the jobber, who sends it to the linseed 

 mill. Here the seed is cleaned of weed seeds and 

 refuse by screening and fanning machines; then it 

 passes through a series of rollers that reduce it to 

 a pasty mass of meal. Now the meal is put into 

 camel's hair bags, and moulded into cakes, that 

 are heated to near 200 F., then brought under 

 pressure that extracts the oil, leaving "oil cake. " 



The oil is drawn off and refined, after which it is 

 ready for market. Oil cake is ground into oil 

 meal, and sold for stock food. "Linseed" oil is 

 used in the manufacture of the best grades of 

 paint, and for a multitude of other purposes, includ- 

 ing the making of patent-leather shoes. 



