28 FLAX CULTURE AND PREPARATION 



The knowledge of the foregoing facts is most important 

 because experts have been known to declare that the variation 

 in the brairds is due to different grades or classes of seed 

 having got mixed. 



27. Exhaustion of Soil. Pliny asserts that the flax plant 

 has the property of scorching (exhausting) the ground where 

 it grows and of deteriorating the very soil itself. Among 

 present-day farmers this view still prevails ; moreover, they 

 hold that the flax plant removes from the soil a greater pro- 

 portion of nutriment than occurs with other farm crops ; on 

 the contrary, the researches of scientists and experimenters 

 conflict with this deeply-rooted belief. Farmers, however, 

 are not easily diverted from ordinary custom, they are natur- 

 ally shy and sceptical, they are a cautious people and adhere 

 tenaciously to traditional ways of supposed success reaching 

 back through many decades and generations. They shun 

 new ideas and suggested modifications and improvements 

 either of methods or material when initiated by theorists. 



Scientists who have investigated this phase of the subject 

 contend that a field sown with flax seed does not lose any more 

 of its nutritive properties than does a like field of soil sown 

 with wheat, barley or other cereals. 



Fig. 12 is a graph prepared from the research records of 

 Professor Snyder, demonstrating the truth of this contention. 

 The graph is a comparison of flax and wheat, and shows 

 relatively the extraction of nutriment taken from the soil per 

 acre of cultivation. A study of the illustration shows that the 

 flax extractions from the soil were, in two cases only, in excess 

 of the wheat extractions and these were comparatively slight. 



Fig. 13 is a graph specially prepared to show the extraction 

 from the soil of potash, nitrogen, and phosphoric acid -three 

 essential constituents of the flax plant. It will be noted that 

 the extraction by the flax plant compares favourably with the 

 six other farm crops represented. A perusal of the illustra- 

 tion demonstrates that flax may follow any crop except turnips 

 and mangel wurzels. 



