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Because of the comparatively small quantities of flax fibre produced in Canada, 

 there has never been any official general grading of Canadian flax fibre, though one 

 Ontario mill has practised it on a commercial scale. In all other countries, grading 

 is established either by custom or by law. Russian flax is distributed among upwards 

 of a dozen grades, and stringent government laws are in force to prevent fraudulent 

 mixtures. Canadian flax fibre manufacturers will secure the benefits of standardiza- 

 tion likewise just as soon as a majority of them can practise grading their fibre for the 

 market, and thereby create Canadian standards. 



As previously mentioned, sorts or qualities are mofet effectively secured when a 

 start is made at harvesting time. In Canadian mills, the average foreman should 

 become capable of completing the work of grading as the fibre leaves the scutcher's 

 hands. Any fair judge of scutching is in a degree a grader. The ability to separate 

 various qualities of flax into uniform lots should not be beyond the ability of the 

 average intelligent foreman. An examination of the handfuls is, moreover, the 

 foreman's best means of gauging the skill and thoroughness of his workmen. To 

 illustrate the bearing of grading on prices for dressed flax fibre, compare the follow- 

 ing possible transactions: 



Six 150-pound bales of mixed Canadian flax would bring, let us say, 18 cents a 

 pound in the spring of 1916. The price paid for this lot would be $162. If these 

 six bales had been graded into six bales of various qualities, the prices would prob- 

 ably be as follows: No. 1, 25 cents; No. 2, 24 cents; No. 3, 23 cents; No. 4, 21 

 cents; No. 5, 20 cents; and No. 6, 18 cents. In this condition the same flax would 

 bring $196.50. The additional revenue created by grading would be $34.50. Only 

 a small portion of this would be needed to offset the extra labour and precautions 

 taken in grading. 



MILL CONDITIONS. 



In emphasizing the importance of skilful scutching it must be admitted that 

 vast improvements in the heating, lighting, and ventilating arrangements of the 

 average Ontario mill are badly needed. Scutchers gravitate toward the best work- 

 ing conditions the mill where the air is kept comparatively dustless and fresh by 

 suction fans, where steam-heating pipes permit the men to work without coats or 

 mitts, and where plentiful light permits close scrutiny of one's work. The mill with 

 enthusiastic workmen soon becomes the mill with skilled workmen. To retain these 

 and attract others there must be the smallest possible number of idle days. Toward 

 this end, the drying room for retted straw is a new step in advance. Mr. Fraleigh's 

 mill at Forest, Ont., has a drying room inside the mill building. This has sufficient 

 capacity to carry operations over any ordinary period of winter thaw. 



The better grades of Canadian flax fibre have for years found a market in the 

 thread mills of New England. Inferior lots and tows have been sold largely of a 

 Canadian twine company. 



Recently, inquiries have come from Irish flax buyers with a view to buying 

 Canadian flax straw in baled form and transporting it across the ocean for manu- 

 facture in Irish mills. Only very hisrh prices would make such arrangements profit- 

 able. 



The lack of official grading practically confines our market to those spinners who 

 by long experience understand Canadian mill conditions. 



SEED FLAX. 



Wherever the flax plant has accompanied the pioneer into the Central Plain of 

 Xorth America it has been grown for seed alone, or almost exclusively to this end. 

 Flax in our Prairie Provinces is primarily the pioneer crop, by which the settler 

 achieves not only the subjugation of the prairie sod, but in addition secures a con- 



