Jik$ Ireland, Holland, and Germany. Even in the face of growing difficul- 

 -liovfeve-r, \a* majority of the mill operators failed to see the immediate necessity of 

 such redeeming measures as better processes, more extensive machinery for field and 

 mill, and government co-operation for marketing and cultural instruction. As a 

 result, the number of active flax mills had dwindled by 1910 to fifteen, and the area 

 under fibre flax to about 5,000 acres. 



Ireland, likewise, has suffered a marked decline in flax production within the 

 past half century. The acreage under crop in that country has fallen from 194,823 in 

 1870, to about 50,000 in 1915. However, in spite of widening spheres' in the use of 

 cotton, jute, and hemp, there has arisen in recent years a lively demand for a flax fibre 

 approximating in quality the better grades originating in Belgium and Holland. The 

 exceeding devastation attendant on the invasion of Belgium by the Germans has 

 merely added urgency to this situation. 



A few Canadian farmers and flax men have been quick to catch the lesson and 

 profit by the opportunity. As this is written, the tide of flax revival is reaching the 

 remoter portions of the former flax area of southwestern Ontario. Already the number 

 of flax centres that promise to resume activity during 1916 is approaching thirty. 



NEW PHASES OF THE INDUSTRY. 



With this revival, better cultural methods and newer manufacturing processes 

 will probably be put into practice. Just as a generation ago the tendency toward 

 centralization took the form of one mill for farms within wagon haul, so now some 

 mill men propose to carry this principle still further by handling at a central mill the 

 flax crops grown about various towns and villages connected by railway with the 

 central plant. The advantages of this system have 'been proven in Belgium and 

 Ireland, in reference to both retting and mill operations. The central retteries on the 

 river Lys in Belgium handle flax from points in Germany, France and Holland. By 

 this method, more systematic management, economical equipment, and other advan- 

 tages are available to offset the expense of baling the flax straw and of rail haulage 

 from contributing stations to the central plant. 



The advantage of this system to the farmers remote from mills is obvious. Here- 

 tofore, for those beyond hauling distance by team, there were no profitable arrange- 

 ments for marketing fibre flax. 



IS FLAX SUITABLE TO OUR SOIL AND CLIMATE? 



This question involves not only the consideration of absolute suitability in itself 

 but indirectly the related issues connected with cultural methods, rental prices, labour, 

 machinery, business enterprise and markets. Supremacy in any given sphere of 

 endeavour depends on the second set of considerations more nowadays than ever before. 

 In point of absolute suitability for flax, the soil and climate of Ireland are probably 

 no more favoured than those of England, where for other reasons flax crops have prac- 

 tically disappeared. To balance the disadvantage of higher cost of labour and living 

 conditions than exist in Europe, Canadian flax growers potentially enjoy cheaper and 

 more uniform land, more uniform crops, and greater economy of manufacture by the 

 wider use of machinery. It is through such factors nowadays that success in any 

 industry is usually determined. 



These factors aside, we are convinced that the soil and climate of the Great 

 Lakes and St. Lawrence regions of Canada and western British Columbia are well 

 suited to fibre flax culture. Hundreds of fields of fibre flax, true to the highest stan- 

 dards 1 of quality, have given birth to this conviction. 



In strength, Canadian flax has repeatedly been declared equal to the better grades 

 of Irish flax, and in the qualities that please the spinner of the finer yarns various 

 specimens of Canadian fibre, carefully worked, have won a high reputation. 



