28 FLAX. 



of soils) tldnner than tlie usual crop, to make it produce 

 more seed; but after the third or fourth year it will be 

 found to degenerate. When Riga seed is purchased, it 

 is generally found to be very foul, full of weed seeds, so 

 that it is necessary to be cleansed by means of a sieve ; 

 nor is it usually productive the first year it is sown in 

 England, but very good the second season. Many years' 

 experience has proved to me that the best crops of flax 

 follow the severest winters ; the same holds good, I 

 believe, in Flanders. Flax should never be sown after 

 turnips, for should the produce be great, the quality will 

 be inferior. The best land for its growth is after grass, 

 to be ploughed YERY shallow early in the winter, and 

 after being rolled with a very heavy roller, to be 

 chopped over with mattocks, sufficiently deep to cover 

 the seed with harrows, then the clods to be broken fine 

 with beetles, and rolled with a light roller. Crops thus 

 served are commonly the best and cleanest from weeds. 

 The next best is after a lying-down crop of wheat ; and 

 the next, after potatoes, the land being folded with sheep 

 in January and February. Flax will also succeed after 

 barley, oats, and everything but turnips, and the turnip 

 kind. The same land should not be sown with flax 

 oftener than once in seven or eight years ; nor should 

 land be thus applied that has been limed within a few 

 years. "When it can be obtained, good old earth is an 

 excellent manure for flax, to be laid on in frosty weather, 

 but not when the weather is wet. It may be well to 

 remark, that no crop is so desirable with which to grow 

 grass-seeds as flax, as, in drawing the flax, the roots of 

 the grass are loosened, and thereby encouraged to a great 

 degree, the same being often injured by a corn crop. 

 There is also great advantage to be gained to the farmer 

 by sowing turnips after a flax crop, which should be done 

 immediately after the land is cleared and ploughed ; thus 

 turnips will be produced almost equally good, if not so 

 large, as if the flax had not been grown, and will be 

 found useful in the spring, after other turnips are 

 consumed. 



