WEEDING AND STICKING. 43 



if the north-east blasts of spring be prevalent at the 

 time. 



A writer in the "Home Companion" thus describes 

 the process of flax-weeding from personal observation : 

 " Suppose that you had lost a single valuable pearl on 

 the smooth-shaven grass-plot before your door. To find 

 it, a good plan would be to get half-a-dozen sharp-eyed 

 women and children to go down on their knees side by 

 side, as close together as they could conveniently work, 

 and to make them creep steadily forward in a rank, like 

 so many soldiers, searching as they advanced for the lost 

 pearl between every single blade of grass ; and when 

 they had thus finished one strip of your lawn, to order 

 them to go over the contiguous portion in like manner, 

 till the whole was finished. This is exactly the way in 

 which flax is weeded, docks, charlock, and thistles being 

 the object of search, instead of pearls and rubies. The 

 gangs of weeders often consist of twenty, thirty, and even 

 more persons ; the more the better, because the quicker 

 and the sooner over. "While passing through Belgium 

 one spring, I used to fancy that if a peasant, after retiring 

 to rest, remembered that he had passed over one sprout- 

 ing weed, in his new-sown flax, he would be unable to 

 sleep upon his mattress, and would get up in the middle 

 of the night, to search for it by moonlight. To unpro- 

 fessional eyes, the plant looks too delicate to bear the 

 pressure of this inquisitive crowd ; but its natural elas- 

 ticity raises it again, and to help it, it is the custom for 

 the weeders to advance against the wind, in order that 

 the welcome breeze may aid the prostrate flax to hold up 

 its head in the world once more. It appears that a calm 

 is not conducive to the future prosperity of plants that 

 have once been trampled on. On foul land, this opera- 

 tion has to be repeated. "When once the weeding or 

 weedings are finished, nothing more is done till the flax 

 is ripe." But it cannot be too strongly insisted on, that 

 land destined for the growth of flax, should be as nearly 

 as possible perfectly clean. 



In certain cases, however, one trifling piece of acldi- 



