PULLING AND RIPPLING FLAX. 121 



of grassing and scutching being such as the unemployed juvenile 

 population could easily perform at home. 



With respect to pulling flax before the seed has arrived at 

 sufficient maturity for preservation, I desired to test the expe- 

 rience of my Belgian workmen, and therefore produced autho- 

 rities to prove the necessity of sacrificing that important part of 

 the crop in order to secure the finest fibre. They insisted upon 

 the absurdity of the recommendation, observing, that unless the 

 formation of the seed were completed in the bolls, the flax 

 would be defective : but, if allowed to obtain the proper de 

 gree of ripeness, both could, under their treatment, be brought 

 to perfection. I inquired when my flax would be ready for 

 pulling. They replied, "in two weeks." 1 then directed 

 them to pull some of the ripest and steep it immediately. 

 About a hundred sheaves were accordingly placed in the 

 water ; the men declaring that good flax would be found only 

 in the middle, and bad at both ends of the stalks. 



At the expiration of a fortnight some more were pulled, and, 

 except being stocked and threshed, were treated like the former. 

 But when scutched it was thirty per cent, better, exclusive of 

 the seed saved, both ends being perfect, while those of the other 

 were precisely in the state foretold by the Belgians. The re- 

 mainder of the field was dried in stocks, stacked, and the seed 

 beaten out in the winter. 



From the result of this experiment I ascertained that there 

 were four principal methods of pulling and steeping, as fol- 

 lows : 



1. The flax is pulled, and in a few hours steeped with the 

 seed. 



2. The bolls are rippled on the field, and the stalks steeped 

 immediately. 



