FLAX CULTURE 



ITS HISTORY. 



The native country of the Flax plant is unknown, though there is good reason to 

 believe it to be Armenia; and no doubt it was from thence spread over all the countries 

 known to the ancients. The cultivation of the Flax plant, and the manufacture of the fiber 

 into cloth, are of very ancient date. The references to the fine linen of Egypt, and the 

 purple and fine linen of Judea, in the Hebrew Scriptures, carry us back to a remote 

 period, and show the antiquity of Flax and its products. Flax is first mentioned in Genesis 

 xli, 42. Joseph, on his appointment as Viceroy of Egypt, being arrayed by Pharaoh 

 in vestures of fine linen ; and again in Exodus ix, 31, when one of the plagues fell upon it: 

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

 boiled." Job, who is generally supposed to have lived before the Mosaic era, complained 

 that " his days were swifter than the weaver's shuttle." (Job vii, 6). The accuracy of 

 these allusions may be tested by the traveler in Egypt at the present day. The cultivation 

 of the Flax plant, the various processes for separating the fiber and dressing it, and the sub- 

 sequent operations of spinning and weaving into linen fabrics are depicted, with artistic 

 skill, upon the temples and tombs of Egypt, as freshly as if they had been limned but 

 yesterday, instead of 4000 years ago. It is a remarkable fact that the linen fabrics, in 

 which the Egyptian Mummies were enveloped more than forty centuries ago, are perfectly 

 well-preserved up to this day, showing the extraordinary tenacity and endurance of the Flax 

 fiber, which qualities are not possessed in the same degree, by any other textile. The 

 nations of antiquity which next to Egypt were famed for the products of their looms, 

 were Phoenica, Babylonia, Colchis, Greece, Italy, Germany, Gaul and Spain the four 

 last named being also Flax-producing regions. 



After the fall of the Roman Empire, the linen manufacture underwent a long eclipse in 

 the records of history. Its reappearance in the tenth century, was mainly due to the 

 Flemish. In this century the town of Ypres, in Flanders, was built, and soon became 

 celebrated for its manufacture of table linen, now called " Diaper," i.e. d'Ypres. As 

 early, however, as the seventh century, ladies of rank in England, and even Royal 

 Princesses, had acquired much fame by their skill in spinning, weaving and embroidering 

 rich vestments for the Anglo-saxon clergy. After the Norman conquest there was a con- 

 stant immigration of Flemish weavers into England. The weavers soon became so 

 important a part of the body politic, that they incorporated in guilds by Royal Charter. 

 The first mention of Irish linen occurs as far back as the thirteenth century ; but it was 

 not until the close of the seventeenth century, that it received the impulse which led to its 

 becoming the staple industry of Ulster. The extension of the Irish woolen trade excited 

 the jealousy of the English woolen manufacturers, and in the reigns of Charles II, Wil- 

 liam III, and Queen Anne, successive enactments were passed by Parliament, prohibiting 

 the export of woolen manufactures from Ireland, except to England and Wales. Not 

 content with these restrictions, in the tenth year of William III, another act was passed, 

 founded on the Report of a Special Committee, forbidding any export whatever from 

 Ireland, of wool or woolen manufactures. The reasons given by the Committee for their 



