78 FLAX CULTURE AND PREPARATION 



four bags per acre cultivated, or seven to nine bags of clean 

 sowing seed for every bag sown. The yield of scutched flax 

 fibre should vary from 32 to 40 stones per cultivated acre. 

 In 1917 a County Down (Ireland) farmer reaped nine bags 

 of excellent sowing seed from one bag of seed sown. In the 

 same year and county a farmer divided his crop into two 

 sections, one of which he harvested for fibre only, the other 

 he pulled, stocked, dried, stacked, deseeded, and retted in 

 the spring of 1918. The total receipts for the latter were 

 exactly twice those of the former. 



It is interesting to note that many flax growers who stack 

 their flax and defer the retting until the following summer, 

 assert that the resultant fibre is approximately 10 per cent, 

 better in yield and quality. With this view the Dutch experi- 

 ence concurs. There are, however, flax growers who are 

 diametrically opposed to this view. 



72. Farming Experiments. Some years ago an Irish farmer 

 pulled about 100 beets of green flax and retted the same 

 immediately. A fortnight later the main crop was pulled, 

 dried, stacked, deseeded, and retted in the following year. 

 The quality of the fibre of the former in respect to fineness 

 was superior but good fibre was only found in the middle of 

 the stem, and the yield was 30 per cent, less than that of the 

 main crop. 



Another Irish farmer cultivated 24 statute acres of flax 

 and produced 345 bushels of excellent seed an average of 

 14 to 15 bushels per acre. The scutched flax yielded over 

 30 stones per acre, and the price received for same exceeded 

 by 20 per cent, the average price for the given year a sufficient 

 evidence that the flax does not necessarily suffer in relative 

 value because of the deseeding operation. In the following 

 year 56 acres were sown with this Irish-saved seed, and 8 

 acres with Riga and Dutch seed. The home-saved seed 

 germinated and brairded sooner and produced a better crop 

 than did the imported seed. During the present year many 

 farmers have obtained flax crops from Irish seed, well saved, 



