FLAX 405 



Tons 



Kussia 130,000 



Prance 48,000 



Belgium . . 18,000 



Holland . -V . ". . . . . . . 9,000 



Austria . .... . . . . 60,000 



Prussia . .-'.. 32,000 



Ireland . . , * 35,000 



Egypt 10,000 



and adding all other countries, we may estimate the entire annual -weight of fibre 

 produced throughout the world, at 400,000 tons. 



The quantity of seed may be taken at nearly 2,000,000 of quarters. At the 

 average value of fibre and seed, the annual production in all countries, of the former, 

 may be given in value at 20,000,000^., and of the latter at 5,000,000^., making in all, 

 25,000,000/. as the worth of the raw produce, before its conversion into woven fabrics 

 and feeding-stuffs. 



From all we can learn relative to the earliest annals of the flaxen trades of the 

 United Kingdom, it would seem that the great object of those who took most interest 

 in their progress was to secure ample supplies of raw material. Long before the 

 manufacture of cotton gave such impulse to enterprise in Great Britain the govern- 

 ments of the day and the great landowners in each shire or county successively 

 patronised the growth of flax. In many of the old English leases it was made a 

 matter of actual covenant .that farmers should every season set apart certain sections 

 of land for that purpose, and at most of the country fairs there were premiums offered 

 for the largest and best-finished parcels of flax. Two centuries ago, Scotland was 

 especially famed for the production of the finest description of material to be found in 

 either England or Ireland ; and as she too had her Board of Trustees whose duty it 

 was to encourage the growth as well as the manufacture of flax, a large quantity of 

 that article was annually raised there. This system of home growth was kept up on 

 both sides the Tweed until the last quarter of the past century, when the introduction 

 of the Asiatic fibre, and the mechanical contrivances of Hargreaves, Crompton, and 

 Arkwright, gave a new turn to British enterprise. In a few years the manufacture of 

 cotton had extended so rapidly that it took the lead of all the clothing trades. 



From that period demand for flax fell away, and English farmers, finding more 

 difficulty in making sale of that variety of crop, ceased to grow it for fibre ; but a 

 few men in Dorset, Devonshire, and Somersetshire sow flax almost solely for seed. 

 All that time, however, and on to the present, the Irish people, and especially Ulster- 

 men, continued to grow the ' national fibre,' for although the cotton manufacture had 

 made some progress there, the demand for linen rose rapidly and the cry for larger 

 supplies of raw material was heard on all sides. The culture of flax in Ireland 

 formed a large field of local enterprise at a very early period of that country's history. 

 Cormac O'Conn, who reigned there in the third century, is described as wearing ' a 

 girdle of fine flax ; ' and five hundred years afterwards, when Niall the Third was in 

 power, exports of flax formed the most prominent features of Ireland's trade with 

 England. During succeeding ages the Irish farmer seems to have forgotten his 

 cunning, as in the days of Lord Stratford's vice-regal government in that island the 

 growth of flax as well as the make of linen had degenerated very much. Whatever 

 may have been the faults or failings of the unfortunate Earl, in other phases of his 

 political career, the Irish linen trade owes more to him than to any other of the 

 English deputies, not only of his own time, but of any that succeeded him. When 

 Lord Strafford made his first tour of the Irish provinces, the average yield of the 

 plantation acre, which in point of area was more than one and a half that of the 

 English acre, did not exceed fifteen stones, and the length of fibre was about twelve 

 inches. The Earl sent orders to Holland for supplies of seed in the spring of 1633, 

 the year after his appointment, and he also brought over a number of Dutch farmers 

 to teach Irishmen the most successful mode of cultivating the plant. These foreigners 

 were kept at work for several seasons, and the result of their exertions was that in 

 1638 the turn-out was thirty stones to the acre, and the length of flax stem had 

 increased to 2| feet. Fifty years afterwards Arthur Dobbs wrote a history of Ireland's 

 Commerce and Agriculture. There was then an area of thirty thousand acres under 

 flax, and the yield had gone up to an average of forty-four stones to the Irish acre. 

 We should here state that the settlement of the Huguenots in different parts of the 

 island had by that time given powerful impetus to every branch of the linen trade. In 

 nearly all the northern counties the culture of flax began to be studied as an art, and 

 the more enterprising growers prided themselves very much on the quality of the article 

 they were able to produce. 



