24 FLAX CULTURE AND PREPARATION 



the blue variety yields a finer and better quality of fibre than 

 the white variety, but the latter produces a stronger crop of 

 flax and is less liable to disease than its contemporary variety. 



A change of seed and soil is persistently advocated by many 

 flax farmers who claim advantages in quality and yield as 

 a result. 



It is significant that many flax growers seldom, if ever, 

 change their seed for the same land and soil. In some of the 

 Baltic provinces of Russia, reputed growers of flax fibre and 

 seed sow their own saved seed repeatedly on their own land. 

 The same is true of flax growers in Friesland. 



Many Dutch and Flemish farmers maintain that the flax 

 plant rapidly deteriorates, after a few years in the same soil 

 and even assert that the Riga blue flowering plant changes 

 into the white variety. It is difficult to perceive how the soil 

 could have such an effect on the plant as to change the variety 

 from vulgar e to album. It is more probable that this change 

 is the result of the cross-fertilizing action of the bees extending 

 over a period of years. In the milder climates the flax plant 

 is cultivated for seed to be used as feeding stuffs, but when this 

 seed is transferred to a more northerly and colder climate 

 it produces a plant, after a few years of careful cultivation, 

 which reverts to a ^re-producing type. 



On the suitability of soils, as on almost every other section 

 of flax culture and preparation, diversified views are held. 

 It frequently occurs that some experimentists have only made 

 one series of tests, and consequently their knowledge, though 

 true to fact, locally, may differ essentially from that of others 

 whose experience has been gained in a wider field and different 

 set of conditions. The kind of soil most suitable for flax 

 culture, opens up a large field for thought, observation, and 

 careful investigation. 



25. Variety of Growth due to Differences in Soil. In the 

 spring of the present year some Canadian-saved Dutch flax 

 fibre seed was sown on a moderately heavy loam on a clay 

 sub-soil. During the operation some of the seed was 



