186 WOOL 



empire countries (Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, 

 British India, 1 Egypt, 2 and the Falkland Islands) produce not 

 only sufficient for all our needs at home, but almost twice the 

 amount necessary for the needs of the whole empire. 



Not only so, but of all the wool produced in the world, over 

 40 per cent, is from empire sources. 3 



Nevertheless we import from many foreign countries, the 

 largest amounts coming from South America (the Argentine, 

 Chili, Uruguay, Peru) and France. 



CHAPTER XV 



FIBRES (continued) 



FLAX ( A.S . flax, Latin linuln) . ' And the flax and the barley 

 was smitten : for the barley was in the ear and the flax was 

 boiled.' Exodus ix. 31. 



In England we call the plant by its Saxon name flax, but 

 the material, which is woven from its fibres, we call linen, 

 from linum, the Latin name for flax. 



There are many plants belonging to the flax tribe, but the 

 one from which linen is made is linum usitatissimum. It is 

 not the one which we find growing wild on chalky and sandy 

 land, though the two plants are very similar. Linum usitatis- 

 simum grows about two feet high. It generally has one stalk 

 with little slender leaves on alternate sides of it, while towards 

 the end smaller stems branch out, each bearing one pale blue 

 flower with five petals. 



When the petals fall, and the fruit is formed, in the place 

 of the pretty blue flowers are little round brown balls, each 

 containing ten small seed about a quarter of an inch long. 



1 Australia, 702 million pounds ; New Zealand, 197 ; South Africa, 145 ; 

 British India, 60 ; other places (chiefly Egypt and the Falkland Isles), 6. 

 But though Australia produced this enormous quantity, of the wool actually 

 consumed in the United Kingdom only 25 per cent, came from Australia. 



2 All the Egyptian wool, and a good deal of the Indian, is coarse carpet 

 wool. 



3 Of the merino wool imported into Germany 80 per cent, was from the 

 British Empire. 



