FLAX, COMMON. 



Ing a large proportion of her supplies. The 

 principal countries from whence these are ob- 

 tained are Russia, the Netherlands, Prussia, 

 and France, with small quantities from Ame 

 rica, Italy, New South Wales, &c. The duty 

 in England is at present Id. per cwt. 



In Ireland, flax usually follows potatoes. In 

 Scotland, land that has been several years in 

 pasture, and from which one crop of grain has 

 been taken, is preferred. In Flanders, the crops 

 which immediately precede flax, in light soils, 

 are barley or rye, with turnips after them the 

 same year. All these crops are more highly 

 manured than usual, and before the flax-seed 

 is sown, peat ashes, at the rate of 30 bushels 

 per acre, are spread and harrowed in, and a 

 few days afterwards 10 hogsheads of strong 

 liquid manure is poured regularly over the 

 land, and left for a week or 10 days to soak 

 thoroughly into the soil. The seed is then 

 sown very abundantly ; cloudy or showery 

 weather is the time chosen ; the quantity 

 varies, but the general proportion is 160 Ibs. 

 to the acre. It is lightly covered in by a bush- 

 harrow, drawn over the land, for if the seed 

 were buried more than half an inch deep it 

 would prevent its vegetating. The choice of 

 seed requires great care and circumspection: 

 good fresh seed should be of a bright colour, 

 with a sweet taste, and it will feel smooth, 

 slippery, and plump, and, on being broken, 

 thould appear ofa greenish yellow colour, and 

 *hould sink in water. Genuine seed will 

 average 18 Ibs. per peck, but good Riga seed 

 is somewhat lighter. Hand weeding should be 

 attended to when the stems are from two to 

 three inches above the surface, for when the 

 flax is higher, it is liable to be injured by the 

 weeders. The proper time for pulling flax, 

 when not intended for seed, is when about two- 

 thirds of the stalk is observed to turn yellow, 

 and to lose the leaves. If intended for seed, 

 the flax should not be pulled until the capsules 

 have acquired a brown colour, and the points 

 have become firm, and so sharp as to fix them- 

 selves in the hand when pressed, and when 

 nearly all the leaves and foliage have withered 

 and fallen from the stem. 



When flax is raised both for the seed and 

 stalk, it is submitted to an operation called 

 rippling, which consists in separating the seed 

 from the stalk, by passing the flax through a 

 kind of comb, before it is steeped in water. 

 The iron teeth of these combs are placed so 

 close together that the heads cannot pass 

 through, and are consequently pulled off. An- 

 other practice is to beat out the seed in the 

 field with a piece of wood, or a heavier stick 

 than that of the common flail, and then to sift 

 the seed into a large sheet. In preparing flax 

 for the manufacturer, the first operation it un- 

 dergoes is that of steeping it in water, to loosen 

 the bark and separate it from the stalk ; for this 

 purpose it is tied into small bundles, and then 

 placed in a pond or reservoir of soft water. 

 The sheaves are slightly covered with straw, 

 fern, rushes, or coarse herbage (kept down by 

 stones or heavy bodies), to prevent the flax 

 from being discoloured by the sun. In the 

 course of seven or eight days the rind will be 

 sufficiently loosened, and the flax must be 



FLAX, PURGING. 



j taken out of the water and spread out to dry. 

 Phillips says there is an act of parliament in 

 force, which forbids the steeping of flax in 

 rivers, or any waters where cattle are accus- 

 tomed to drink, as it is found to communicate 

 a poison destructive to the cattle whicli drink 

 of it, and to the fish which live in such waters. 

 The odour it exhales is most disagreeable, and 

 has often been productive of fever. Another 

 but far more tedious process, resorted to for 

 separating the bark from the stalk, is called 

 dew retting, and consists in spreading the flax 

 upon grass lands, and exposing it to the con- 

 stant action of rain and dew. Hot water and 

 soft soap are said to decorticate the stalk in a 

 few hours. Grassing or bleaching the flax on 

 old grass ground is the next operation, and is in- 

 tended to rectify any defect in the steeping. 

 The last process is that of bruising and scutch- 

 inir. previous to which it should be mode- 

 rately dried. The woody part of the stem was 

 formerly beaten or bruised with a hand mallet; 

 but this operation is now more effectually per- 

 formed by machinery. Flax-mills, with suita- 

 ble wheels and rollers, now greatly facilitate 

 the processes of bruising and scutching. Mr. 

 James Durno (then British consul at Munich) 

 gives an interesting account in the sixth volume 

 of the Com. to Board ofJlgr. p. 75, of "the mode 

 of cultivating flax and hemp in Russia, Prussia, 

 and Poland ;" and Mr. Robert Somerville, of 

 HaiMington, has also a very excellent paper in 

 the same volume (p. 84), urging very strenu- 

 ously the necessity for a more general home 

 cultivation of those essential articles, hemp 

 and flax, and suggesting improvements in the 

 processes of dressing, &c^ many of which 

 have since been carried out. (Brit. Hugh. vol. 

 iii. p. 42; Quart. Jowrn. Jlgr. vol. iv. p. 159; 

 Wullock't Com. Diet.) 



In the United States flax, which was once, 

 considered a crop so indispensable among the 

 crops of our farmers, is now but little cul- 

 tivated; its linty product being superseded by 

 the cotton of the South. It is a crop which in- 

 volves a good deal of troublesome labour, and, 

 without being profitable, is generally believed 

 to be injurious to the soil ; an opinion as old 

 as the time of Virgil, who says "Urit enim 

 LIM campum seges, urit avenae." Georg. 1,71. 

 The seeds, besides yielding a most valuable 

 oil, afford one of the best mucilaginous drinks 

 for coughs, and dysenteric affections. Two or 

 three other species are enumerated in the 

 United States. (F lor. Cestrica.) 



Quite recently the old brake for preparing 

 flax-fibre has been superseded by ingenious 

 machines, consisting generally of an adapta- 

 tion of fluted rollers, which so break the 

 woody core or "boon" as to render it com- 

 paratively easy to separate the " shives," and 

 leave the tough fibre finely subdivided and 

 prepared for the manufacturer. Patent 

 rights were secured in 1862, by Sanford and 

 Mallory, of New York, for rare inventions for 

 breaking and cleaving, dressing, scutching, 

 cleaning and separating the fibres of the flax- 

 plant. Others in Ohio and elsewhere have 

 also obtained patents for similar purposes. 

 A great stimulus was given to flax-culture 

 during the late civil war, when the supply of 

 2 s 2 485 



