106 MANAGEMENT OF FLAX. 



"Drying. If the steeping and grassing have been perfect, 

 flax should require no fire ; but, to make it ready for breaking 

 and scutching, exposure to the sun should be sufficient; but if 

 the weather be damp, the flax tough, and it must be wrought 

 off, then it must be fire-dried. Such drying is always more or 

 less injurious ; the flax is absolutely burned before it is dry. 

 All who can afford it should keep such flax over till the ensu- 

 ing spring or summer, putting it dry into stack, then it will 

 work freely without fire-heat. 



" Breaking. Vertical wooden rollers, lightly grooved, break 

 flax better than any other method I have yet seen. Very 

 little of our flax is bruised sufficiently, and the consequent 

 waste in scutching is serious. In this, also, it should be kept 

 straight and even at the roots. 



(f Scutching. On scutching I need say little. The slovenly 

 wasteful way it is usually performed is but too obvious, and 

 cries aloud for amendment ; even in the very best mills, in this 

 part of the country, the deficiency is evident, when compared 

 with the Down and Armagh flax. The remedy is difficult, for 

 the system must be altogether changed. But changed it must 

 be, or the present heavy loss be perpetuated. I have good 

 hope that the Belfast Association will effect a reformation of 

 this evil. 



" I omitted, in speaking of steeping, to notice the most par- 

 ticular cause of injury, say the exudation of water from the 

 sides or bottom of the pond. Stripe and discoloration are 

 mostly imputed to the quality of the water brought to the pond ; 

 whilst in nine cases of every ten, the water oozing from the 

 sides and bottom of the pond itself is the cause. Even if such 

 water was pure, which it seldom is, it is injurious; but when 

 impregnated with iron or other minerals, it does immense 

 harm. If such ponds must continue to be used, the injury may 

 be partially amended by draining around the sides and ends, 

 at six or eight feet distance, and eighteen inches deeper than the 

 bottom of the pond, and filling the drains with stones. No other 

 thing I know of does such extensive injury as this springing of 

 water within the pond/' 



