MANAGEMENT OF FLAX, 303 



four pair of fluted rollers, placed upon a frame of wood. 

 Tliroug-li the flutes of the rollers, which revolve into each 

 other, the flax is passed in small handfuls. In this manner 

 the flax is bruised, and put into a state to have the lig-neous 

 refxise separated from the fibrous part by scutching-. 



Scutching. — This operation may be performed either by 

 machinery or by manual labour. When performed by manual 

 labour, a handfiil of the flax is held by one hand in the open- 

 ing- of the scutching- board, and beaten by an implement 

 called a swing-le, held in the other hand, by the repeated 

 strokes of which the woody particles of the stem are sepa- 

 rated from the fibre. Or the operation of scutching- may be 

 performed by a machine called a scutching- mill. It resem- 

 bles a small caravan ; in the interior are three recesses, 

 formed for the men to stand in while at work, and for their 

 protection from the action of the swing-les, which being 

 placed in an iron axle, and set in motion, would, if necessary, 

 strike the flax resting- on the scutching- boards at the rate 

 of about twelve hundred times in a minute. The scutching- 

 mill and breaking- machine were the invention of Mr. 

 Warnes. 



The Plough, Dec. 1846. 



Art. LXXI.— ox THE CULTIVATION OF FLAX. 



By the Editor of the " Farmer's Almanac." 



The cultivation of the finer varieties of flax in Eng-land has 

 been lately proposed, as not only causing- ver}^ considerable 

 extra demand for labour, but as being- productive of consider- 

 able profit to the g'rower. It is, ]>erhaps, through the error of 

 regarding- flax as being- so very exhausting- a crop that its cul- 

 tivation has been retarded in England. It is supposed not to 

 exhaust the soil more than a crop of wheat j and even this 

 exhaustion is avoided if it is pulled green for the purpose of 

 spinning- into yarn, without allowing the seeds to ripen. " It 

 is grown," remarks Mr. G. Nicholls, " on light poor land, in 

 Bels'ium and in Holland ; and I have seen it a-rowino" on mere 



