74 FLAX CULTURE 



growing in England and Scotland strength- 

 ens the position taken in the body of the 

 book, that flax-growing for fibre is a trade 

 to be learned, and cannot be successfully 

 followed without much care-taking and 

 patience. The British and American 

 farmers dislike the trade ; and compulsion, 

 bounties, and duties are none of them 

 sufficient to induce a general cultivation. 



Whether or not the various bounties 

 and duties on linens stimulated the pro- 

 duction of cloth, and contributed to the 

 present status of the linen industry in 

 Great Britain, is a question outside the 

 present inquiry. We are now concerned 

 merely with the inquiry as to the effect 

 of bounties and duties on flax-growing, 

 and it is certain that at the present day 

 the British linen-mills are largely supplied 

 with the raw material imported from for- 

 eign countries. 



In Ireland the course of development 

 was somewhat different. The climate there 

 is well adapted to the growing of flax and 

 the bleaching of linen ; but the linen indus- 



