FLAX CULTURE. 



Island, during the first nine months of 1791, Mr. Coxe specifies 25,625 yards of linen 

 cloth. The census of iSio returned 21,211,262 yards of flaxen cloths made in families; 

 of this, New York produced 5,300,000 yards ; Virginia about 5,000,000 yards ; Pennsyl- 

 vania, 3,000,000 yards ; Connecticut, 2,250,000 ; New Hampshire, 1,000,000 ; the same 

 census returned a production of 23,952,746 yards of 'blended and unnamed cloths and 

 stuffs,' and 802,718 yards of tow cloth. The census of 1860, after enumerating various 

 subordinate manufactures from flax or flax hemp, adds : Although labor-saving machinery 

 for spinning, as well as doubling, trebling and twisting, was then used to. some extent, 

 both by water and steam power, in regular establishments, and some of these had been 

 introduced into familes, this extended manufacture of flax and hemp was almost wholly a 

 household industry." 



" In connection with, and largely as a consequence of the unusual demand for lint and 

 tow to be consumed in multiform fabrics of house manufacture, sufficient quantities of 

 seed were produced not only for house use and internal commerce, but to leave a large 

 surplus for foreign export. In an official abstract of the exports from the United States 

 for the year ending September 30, 1701, Mr. Coxe specifies 58,492 casks of flax seed. 

 This is assumed to be equivalent to 292,460 bushels that is, over half of the entire pro- 

 duct reported for 1860, and a fraction over one-sixth reported for 1870. Among the 

 exports of the same year were 18,600 pounds of lint and 6,850 yards of tow cloth ; but as 

 the manufacture of cotton fabrics in factories increased, this universal household industry, 

 which had greatly contributed toward keeping families at home, united and contented, by 

 affording a profitable employment to both sexes and all ages, gradually declined to a vanish- 

 ing point. One consequence was, that, while the demand for seed was rapidly increasing, 

 production either remained stationary or decreased. No account of the production of flax 

 seed was taken in the census of 1840, but in 1850 the reported product was 562,312 

 bushels, and the import 667,369 bushels ; in 1860, the product 566,867 bushels and the 

 import 2,754,060 bushels ; in 1870, the product 1,730,444 and the import 4,141,305. In 

 1875, the import was 3,783,344 bushels." 



The enormous increase in the area devoted to the cultivation of Flax, chiefly for the 

 seed since that period, in the states west of Pennsylvania, has caused a proportionate 

 diminution of the import of Flax seed, which, in the fiscal year ending June 30, 1881, was 

 only 797,910 bushels, chiefly from India. The acreage appropriated to the production of 

 Flax seed in the above states, comprising Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Wis- 

 consin, Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska, in 1881, being no less thon 1,127,000 acres, the 

 estimate of the quantity of seed produced is about 8,000,000 bushels, but it must be added 

 that through the heavy rains during the fall months of that year fully 2,000,000 bushels 

 were a total loss, and much of the crop came in a damaged condition. 



A SHAMEFUL WASTE. 



But while Flax seed finds a ready market, and is easily disposed of by the farmer, with 

 whom, as a rule, it is, on that account, a favorite crop, although yielding no profit or at best, 

 only a very small one, a sad tale has to be told of the much more valuable fiber, which, 

 inconsequence of the entire eclipse of the "household industry " mentioned above, has 

 come to be considered by the farmer as " a nuisance or an incumbrance," and as such, is 

 either burned, left to rot in the field, used for thatching or allowed to go to waste. It 

 is hard to believe, and yet it is a fact, that probably 800,000 tons of Flax straw is thus 

 annually doomed to destruction, which, if turned to account, inferior in quality though it 

 be, would put from $4,000,000 to $5, 000,000 into the farmers' treasury, but a much larger 

 sum would annually be added to their wealth, if a more careful and more rational mode of 



