California Agriculturist 



Vol. 7— No. 12.) 



SAN JOSE AND SAN FRANCISCO, CAL,, DECEMBER, 1816. 



) ScmeoBiFTioN Pbice, Sl.SOaTear. 

 \ Single CopleB, 15 Ceute. 



FLAX CULTURE NEAE SAN 

 JOSE. 



If our farmers would get o\U of the 

 rut of eternal wheat culture, autl try a 

 little diversity of cropping, they would 

 find it to their advantage. Mr. J. H. 

 Flickiuger, who owns a fine large tract 

 of laud east of San Jose, has the past 

 season, on 100 acres, produced r2'20 

 centals of No. 1 flaxseed, worth 3% cts. 

 per pound. The cost of cultiv.-ition was 

 no more than for wheat. $39.60 cents 

 to the acre is a good deal better than his 

 neighbors have done with wheat, as all 

 will admit; but still, little better than 

 any of them might have done with flax, 

 with proper care and culture. The flax 

 was all contracted for in advance. The 

 seed cost four cents per pound; 35 lbs. 

 of seed to the acre is suffiuieut. 



The oil mill in San Francisco has to 

 import niueteen-twentieths of all the 

 seed they use, owing to the stupidity of 

 our farmers, who could grow it with 

 profit by rotating with wheat and barley, 

 making each crop better for the culture. 



Mr. Flickiuger kindly took us in his 

 bugg}' on a bright, beautiful morning last 

 mouth, to visit his farm, showed us all 

 over it and told us much about his ex- 

 perience iu farming. His farm lies ad- 

 jacent to the mountains, and has a beau- 

 tiful slope, commanding a grand view of 

 our valley for a long distance. It is 

 well watered with a living stream, is 

 covered with a deposit of alluvial from 

 the hills, and would make an excellent 

 fruit farm, or several, as it contains near 

 1,000 acres. It was on this gentle slope 

 that Mr. F. raised this crop of flax. 



The following we give as his expe- 

 rience and dictation. 



PKEPAEINO THE OEOUND. 



He plows immesliately after the first 

 rains, turning under the newly sprouted 

 weeds, plows well, and barrows imme- 

 diately, and cross harrows, thoroughly 

 pulverizing the soil, as the main fea- 

 ture is to mellow the surface for a seed 

 bed. Then again in about two weeks, 

 when the weeds and mustard are sprout- 

 ed, harrows again twice, to kill all foul 

 growth, when the flax is at once sown 

 and well harrowed in. He sows 33 to 

 40 lbs. of seed tj the acre. Light allu- 

 vial soil should be rolled after harrowing 

 in the seed; but on heavy adobe rolling 

 would be likely to do more injury than 

 benefit. 



TIME OF SOWING. 



By all means sow early. In the inte- 

 rior counties, San Jo.aquin and Sacra- 

 mento valleys, also the Santa Clara val- 

 ley and Salinas valley, flax should be 

 sown from the first of December to mid- 

 dle of January — not later than January 

 15th. Flax must make its principal 

 growth before April 15th, to insure the 

 perfect filling of the bolls, which should 

 contain 8 to 10 plump seeds each. They 

 luust fill before the hot weather to ob- 

 tain a large yield of good seed. By 

 sowing early the flax will mature during 

 the first hot weather, in April or Ma}-, 

 aud make heavy seed, rich in oil, where- 

 as if the sowing is delayed till March 



the flax most m.ake its growth during 

 hot weather, and cannot evenly and 

 properly fill and mature. Mr. F. sowed 

 some flax this year as late as March, 

 which was a failure. While some was 

 ripening the rest was in blossom, and 

 even now the old stubble is some of it 

 green. The early sown all ripened to- 

 gether. Some farmers have objected to 

 sowing early, on the ground that the 

 frost will injure it. Mr. Flickiuger de- 

 clares that it is as hardy as wheat or 

 barley iu this climate, aud that even if 

 it were not, he should take the chances 

 on early r.ither than late sowing. 



HABVESTIMG FLAX. 



The clipper is preferred for cutting the 

 flax, as the most expeditious and cheap- 

 est mode of cuttinsr and stacking. Heap- 

 ing makes too much extra work in gath- 

 ering and stacking, besides shattering 

 out the seed in loading and hauling to 

 the stacks. 



THKESHINO FLAX. 



This is a business few farmers are fa- 

 miliar with, aud one that requires par- 

 ticular attention to save the seed effectu- 

 ally. Iu the first place, you must not 

 have less than eight rows of concaves in 

 your cylinder, and they must be minute- 

 ly adjusted and fitted, so as not to grind 

 the seed. Tben the thresher must bo 

 free from cracks or splits, otherwise the 

 seed will run through like water and be 

 wasted. The vibrator supplied with 

 flax-seives— square mesh No. 7 — is un- 

 doubtedly the best machine to do good 

 work in threshing flax. It leaves the 

 seed in a cleaner condition than any 

 other requiring less after work in re- 

 cleaning with the fanning mill. 



FANNINO MILL CLEANING. 



One of the very essential things about 

 flax growing is to put clean seed into 

 market; No. 1, plump, clean, oily seed 

 that will give satisfaction to the buyer, 

 aud bring the best price. Mr. F. has 

 found, after a good deal of patient ex- 

 perimenting with several mills, aud go- 

 ing to a good deal of expense iu the mat- 

 ter, that the Nash & Cutts No. 2 machine 

 is the best, rigged out with screens, as 

 follows: Take out the lower cheat screen 

 and substitute in its place the mustard 

 screen, which will take out all small 

 seeds. Take off two upper screens, aud 

 in their place put on top square mesh 

 No. 7, which will carry off wheat aud 

 oats, and in place of second screen, a 

 Square mesh No. C. Next replace the 

 whole combination to prevent the flax 

 from blowing over behind the machine. 

 If not very foul a No. 2 machine will 

 clean iu good merchantable condition 

 from 100 to 150 sacks of seed per day 

 with two men. For very foul seed, Mr. 

 F. aud his intelligent workmen have 

 rigged on an attachment, a supplement- 

 ary shaker, with two screens, which com- 

 pletely cleans out all oats and other foul 

 seed that runs over in fast work from the 

 short screens above. 



KilSING CLEAN SEED 



Is important. While the flax is growing 

 men must go into the field and pull out 

 all large weeds, such as mustard, whe.at. 

 oats, barley, etc., for instance. If neg- 



lected the flax will bo shaded in its 

 growth aud not fill well. It will not be 

 as rich in oil, besides being foul aud dif- 

 ficult to clean. A lazy farmer, one who 

 would rathi-r shake dice in a whisky sa- 

 loon iu town than bend his back on his 

 own farm, is not the fit man for this 

 business. No energetic man will stand 

 back because there is work about it, and 

 it requires care in growing and har- 

 vesting. 



AS TO THE SOIL. 



Mr. F. declares that any good soil that 

 will grow wheat or barley will produce 

 good flax in paying quantities, if kept 

 clean from foul growth, and sown early 

 enough. 



AS A ROTATION CROP. 



A gentleman iu Ilollister who one sea- 

 son grew on one half of a field, flax, and 

 on tho other wheat, and the next year 

 sowed wheat over the whole field, found 

 that tho part covered the year before 

 with flax yielded between three and four 

 sacks to the acre more thau the portion 

 previously covered with wheat, doubling 

 the profits. The above facts from Mr. 

 F. we believe should be of value to every 

 grain grower in California. They are 

 the result of practical experience and 

 observation of an iutelligiut and ener- 

 getic business man aud farmer. Oue 

 word as to his stock. Mr. F. deals 

 largely iu beef stock, buying and selling. 

 Every season he raises several acres of 

 beets, which he couvirts with other feed 

 into beef, with an immense profit. We 

 have not his figures, but readily accept 

 his assertion. He has also some fine 

 Durham milk aud beef stock on his farm, 

 and a lot of horses such as are service- 

 able. His farming is a mere pastime, as 

 it were, but shows some system and suc- 

 cess. 



POISONING SQtriniiELS. 



Squirrels, which come in from the 

 hills at times like an avalanche, are here 

 poisoned by the host. Sweet apples arc 

 cut into eight pieces each and charged 

 with strychnine, by making an incision 

 through the skin and putting the poison 

 into the center, then the pieces are drop- 

 ped into the holes. Sweet apples are 

 ravenously eaten by tho rodents, and 

 this way of fixing them is pronounced a 

 dead shot. 



A slothful farmer in such a position 

 might starve, where only energy is re- 

 quired to gain Wealth. Mr. F. antici- 

 pates making valuable improvements on 

 his farm, which, as we said befdr.". is an 

 excellent locality for an orchard, even 

 of semi-tropical fruits, which we be- 

 lieve would succeed admirably under 

 a sheltering ^'ind screen of Monterey 



cypress. 



> > ■ 



Mr. Jack Chamberlain, of Oakl.and, 



a geutlcniaii ^)t ability aud fine address, 

 will take the field (or a tour of the Pa- 

 cific coast the coming year, as special 

 business representative and correspon- 

 dent of the California Ageicitltubist. 

 Anything that our friends can do to aid 

 him in gaiuing information and patron- 

 age for the Cal. Agriculturist will be 

 gratefully appreciated by the Editor. 



PATRONS OF HUSBANDRY. 

 Lectures. 



The Lecturer of the State Gronge, Mr. 

 Blakcy Pilkington, of Santa Cruz, will 

 commence a series of lectures to the 

 Granges in this State this month. The 

 programme as laid out for December is 

 as follows : 



Dec. 12, at Petnluma— Petaluma, So- 

 noma, Bennett Valley and Sauta Rosa 

 Granges. 



Dec. 14, at Napa— Napa, St. Helena, 

 Yonntville and Vallejo Granges. 



Dec. 15lh, at Suisun — Suisun and 

 Rockville Granges. 



Dec. IG, at Elmira — Elmira.jVacaville, 

 Buckeye, Binghamptou and Dixon 

 Granges. 



Dec. 18, at Woodland— Yolo, Cache 

 Creek, Fairview Valley, Antelope, Capay 

 Valley and West Grafton Granges. 



Dec. 19, at Sacramento — Sacramento, 

 Elk Grove, Florin. Enterprise, Cosumnes, 

 American River and Franklin Granges. 



Dec. 21, at Yuba City— Yuba City, 

 North Butte, Marysville and Wheatland 

 Granges. 



Dec. 23, at Chico— Chico and Nord 

 Granges. 



Two lectures will be given on each 

 date, as above. Granges should turn 

 out handsomely, as the subject matter of 

 these lectures is of great importance to 

 the order, and should be well under- 

 stood. Mr. Pilkington is an agreeable 

 speaker, well informed, and thoroughly 

 in earnest, and the Patrons of Husband- 

 ry have been very fortunate in securiug 

 his services. 



Special Notice to Delinquents.— 



The January issue will be the last one 

 sent to such subscribers as neither re- 

 quest a continuance nor pay in advance. 

 Please bear this in mind. We will be 

 willing to wait a while on our friends 

 who cannot pay at once, but we must 

 know w ho by their orders. Because we 

 shall stop sending the paper to those not 

 ordering is no sign that we shall not 

 hold every delinquent to his account. 



We shall have an active agent in the 

 field to canvass the State, write up its 

 most interesting features, and go for de- 

 linquents. We only ask our just dues, 

 and in every case this we shall expect 

 and demand. 



Horticultural. — ^Ve have devoted an 

 unusual ajuount of room to horticulture 

 this month, because it is the season to 

 plant trees, and must bo of more inter- 

 est to the majority of our readers than 

 any other subject. Next month wo will 

 have something on forest and grape cul- 

 ture, with a diversit3- of deparments. 



The " Intellectual Subsoiler, " adver- 

 tised in this issue, has been in constant 

 use iu our office for years. It goes to 

 the root of words and ideas, and turns 

 up definitions and synonyms properly 

 spelled. 



Thb original poem in this issue is wor- 

 thy of a nich in the temple of fame. 



