10 FLAX. 



times to stand and ripen its seed. The seed is crushed 

 in mills, and furnishes an oil for lamps and machinery, so 

 good as jto be preferred by many to rape and colza 

 oil. The cake left after the oil is expressed is used for 

 feeding cattle, and also for manure. The stalks are very 

 largely employed in the manufacture of brooms for house- 

 hold purposes, and thus furnish light winter work to 

 numbers of infirm peasantry. 'With the exception of the 

 circumstance that the seeds of cameline and of flax also 

 are both productive of valuable oil, the two plants are 

 utterly dissimilar in nature, place of growth, and destiny. 

 But even the special merits and qualities of cameline do 

 not seem to be understood or appreciated. Messrs. Gribbs, 

 the eminent seedsmen in London, state that they grew it 

 largely some years ago for a trial. The field on which ifc 

 was sown was a sand. They had a good return in straw 

 and seed. The former was used as litter for pigs, and 

 the latter, at least the greatest portion, was rotted for 

 manure. It is a great misfortune when a community is 

 ignorant how to make the best use of the productions it 

 is capable of raising within the limits of its own territory. 

 In the case of cameline, the matter is of minor consequence. 

 The object of the present " Book for the Country," is to 

 put the novice in the right path to discover the remune- 

 rative management of flax, and to point out incidentally 

 the benefits to be derived by the neighbourhood in which 

 it is so properly managed. 



THE TLAX PLANT. 



Common flax, Linum usitatissimum, or " most-used 

 flax " in botanical language, lin, in French, is an annual 

 plant with a tap root, which becomes fibrous and divided 

 towards its extremity. From its French and Latin names 

 is derived our word "linen;" and its seed is more fre- 

 quently known as "lin-seed" than as flax-seed. The French 

 have a special word linevis to denote the seed of flax or Un 9 

 as they have chenevis for the seed of chanvre, or hemp. 



Botanists, who follow the natural system, have made 



