34 GROWTH OF FLAX RECOMMENDED. 



timber allow the icy winds of winter, and the raw winds 

 of spring, to sweep without opposition over the unshel 

 tered surface. 



The more extensive growth of flax has of late years 

 been very much recommended at home by some with 

 the view of providing employment for the people, by 

 others as a means of raising raw material for our increas 

 ing manufactures, now that the demand for raw cotton 

 over the world appears to increase more rapidly than the 

 production. To thinly-peopled countries like these of 

 North America, where long winters and large families 

 are apt to make idle hands while the snow is on the 

 ground, the flax husbandry seems specially adapted. On 

 the Miramichi, as on the St Lawrence, the crop thrives 

 well, as I have no doubt it will do generally in the pro 

 vince ; but it was mentioned to me, as an objection, that 

 the hot summers are more favourable to the growth and 

 ripening of seed than to the production of a fine fibre. 

 This difficulty is by no means insuperable, however. 

 The ripening of seed does not prevent the extraction of 

 a fine fibre from the stalk, by the warm-water mode of 

 steeping, to which I have elsewhere alluded. And if the 

 local county or provincial agricultural societies give the 

 subject a proper share of attention, there is no reason 

 why we at home should not draw our supplies of linseed, 

 for sowing or crushing, as largely from North America 

 as we now do from Northern Kussia ; while, at the same 

 time, the people of the province would obtain from the 

 same crop both linen for their own domestic use, and 

 employment for their idle hands in winter. 



In describing my previous journey down the Mira 

 michi, I have spoken of the burnt lands through which we 

 passed, and of the bleak and desolate appearance they 

 still presented, though the great fire which desolated them 

 happened five-and-tvventy years ago. In the course 

 of this evening, Mr Rankin, in whose memory all the 



