66 FLAX CULTURE AND PREPARATION 



(a) If the flax is pulled while the stems are just emerging 

 from their green state, the fibres will still retain their natural 

 strength and glossy and silky characteristics. 



(6) Many experienced growers commence to pull the flax 

 immediately after the fruit flowers have fallen, the stems 

 begun to turn yellow and the plant leaves to fall. 



At this stage the seed in the capsules will have begun to 

 change from their milky-white substance to a greenish colour 

 and be moderately firm to the touch. 



(c) Some cultivators do not begin to pull the flax until the 

 stem leaves have fallen to about one-third their length from 

 the soil, the seed in the capsules changed from green to 

 a brownish tint, and the seeds themselves are quite firm 

 and free from moisture. When flax is pulled at this stage 

 and left to winnow for about a week in the field the seed 

 capsules may be rippled off in their green or semi-ripe state, 

 cleaned and dried in the wind and sun, and stored to be eventu- 

 ally crushed and cleaned for sowing purposes. In Belgium 

 and Holland this practice is common ; it has also been 

 successfully accomplished in Ireland. 



It requires courage as well as judgment to pull flax on the 

 green side. Where the fibre is the only desideratum, an 

 experienced and successful flax grower estimates that for 

 every farmer who pulls his flax at this stage, 500 pull theirs 

 when it is over ripe. 



67. Hand Pulling. The operation of manual pulling of flax 

 is simple and easy to learn. (See Fig. 29.) The experienced 

 puller usually lays hold of as many standing flax stems with 

 his left hand as the reach of his fingers will permit. Simul- 

 taneously with his right hand he gathers as many of the 

 adjacent flax stems, and continually adds them to those in 

 the left until he has a sufficient number of stalks to make 

 a reasonably good-sized handful ; these he then grips with 

 both hands, and together with a peculiar twitch of the knee 

 and movement of the arms, he pulls the complete handful of 

 stalks up by the roots, as free as possible from soil and weeds. 



