YAIIIOUS KINDS OE SEED. 13 



expectations lie may form respecting the flax crop which 

 he proposes to cultivate. With this caution, we may 

 proceed to state that the two principal sorts which those 

 writers point out are, first, that known as tin de fin, tin 

 froid, lin rame, or grand I'm, which may be Englished as 

 fine flax, cold flax (from its season), slicked float (from 

 the mode of cultivation), or tall flax, w-hich is the tallest 

 and the latest, but also the slenderest and the least pro- 

 ductive of grain, more cultivated in the north of France 

 than anywhere else, and always on the most fertile and 

 well-tilled soils ; and, secondly, the lin de gros, also called 

 lin tetard, I'm cliaud, lin brancliu, in English, ivliolesale 

 flax, bull-hea d flax, not flax (from its season), branched 

 flax, which is lower, earlier, fuller of branches, and 

 consequently more productive of grain. This latter is 

 asserted, in books, to be more generally cultivated. The 

 truth is, that the soils which produce it are more 

 common than those on which the taller sort can be 

 raised. Between these there are a few intermediate sub- 

 varieties of very variable and fleeting characters, resulting 

 confessedly from the nature of the soil, climate, and 

 culture, by which the progress of their growth is 

 affected. 



Notwithstanding these nice distinctions, practical flax- 

 growers positively affirm that there really is but one 

 kind, or race, of flax ; and that all apparent differences 

 are merely the temporary, though important, consequence 

 of the time of year and quality of soil on w r hich that 

 particular generation of flax happens to be sow r n. The 

 early French agriculturists used to practise the autumnal 

 sowing of flax ; hence, perhaps, the unsuspected cause of 

 one of the difficulties experienced in the west of France 

 in olden times. Olivier de Serres teaches us that " there 

 are two seasons for sowing flax, one before and one after 

 the winter. Spring flax gives less seed and fibre than 

 winter flax, but that fibre is finer and more subtle, and 

 for this quality the former is to be preferred to the latter. 

 All flax bears seed indifferently (there being no distinc- 

 tion of male and female plants, as in hemp), except in the 



