CROPS. 543 



becoming macerated than the bottoms ; and where they are not 

 sufficiently rotted, a considerable loss is experienced. In this 

 case, of course, fresh water is continually supplied to the flax ; 

 and the process is completed sooner or later, according to the 

 temperature of the weather. Great skill is required to determine 

 the precise time when the process is finished, and the flax is to be 

 removed from the water, as a few hours are said in such case to 

 make an important difference in the color of the flax. This must 

 be matter of experience rather than of written instruction. In 

 other cases, a pool or cistern of water is formed in a field, in 

 which the flax is immersed, fixed upright, and the bottoms of 

 the plants not touching the bottom of the cistern ; and so arranged, 

 that this water can be drawn off and replenished with clean 

 water. It is said that in this way the cleaned flax has more 

 weight than in any other, amounting, it is said, over some methods 

 employed, to ten per cent. This method was at one time con 

 sidered a valuable discovery in Flanders. It is clearly important 

 in all cases that the water should have no foreign substance in 

 it, which would be likely to give a coloring to the flax. I have 

 already mentioned the value of the water in which flax has been 

 steeped as a manure to land, having seen the most beneficial 

 effects from it. I am informed that a method has been adopted 

 for getting the bark off the flax by steaming the plant, in which 

 case the whole is accomplished in seventy hours, but I am not 

 sufficiently informed to speak of it with confidence. The flax 

 being thus rotted, the remaining operations through which it 

 passes are well understood. The operations of heckling and 

 swingling flax, which were formerly performed wholly by hand, 

 are now performed by machinery moved either by steam or 

 water ; but it does not enter into my plan &amp;lt;to describe these 

 machines. 



The seed of flax is of great importance in Flanders for the 

 manufacture of ail. About seven bushels of seed are rated as the 

 ordinary yield from an acre of land. This seems a very small 

 product. The seed, when first taken from the stalks, is carefully 

 dried and kept in sacks, until it is beyond the danger of being 

 heated. The cakes from the pressed flax seed are highly valued 

 for the fatting of cattle : and the seed itself, being converted into 

 jelly, is capable of being used in this way to great advantage. 

 Indeed, as far as my own experience goes, I know no single 

 article superior to it for cattle or for sheep. 



