DELIVERY AFTER SCUTCHING. 



89 



handfuls alternately, upwards and downwards, to make 

 them lie as close together as possible, till the determined 

 number of Landfills are packed; the whole is then bound 

 with three cords passing round the middle, and not far 

 from the two ends. 



In packing flax, the producer should be careful to 

 avoid putting samples of a different quality into the 

 same bale ; as, besides the possibility of its being looked 

 upon as a species of fraud, it is always better to sell 

 each quality, separately for what it is worth, than to endea- 

 vour to obtain a mean or medium price for the whole, 

 which will always turn out lower than the mean of the 

 lowest and the highest prices ; for the buyer, in making 

 his estimate of the value, very naturally, takes into con- 

 sideration the time and labour he is obliged to employ 

 in sorting the unequal samples which come into his 

 Lands. The British practice is to 

 deliver flax in stones weight. 



Scutched flax, however, is but an 

 unfinished article, the fibres are still 

 only imperfectly separated from each 

 other, and a portion of useless sub- 

 stance remains, which has to be got 

 rid of by the operation of combing ; 

 serancer is the French verb for to comb 

 flax and hemp, seran being the comb 

 itself. Private house-keepers, for the 

 manufacture of home-spun linen, " 

 make use of a comb which consists of 

 two blocks of wood, B, B &, (see fig. 

 15), each five inches and a half square, 

 and about two inches thick, which are 

 firmly nailed to the middle of an ob- 

 long deal plank, half an inch thick, 

 which is twenty-three inches in ex- 

 treme length, and eight and a-half 

 broad at each end, but is sloped away 

 the middle to five and a-half 



in 



Fig. 15. Comb, or 



inches broad, or to the exact width Scran, for' private use. 



