On the Flax Husbandry of Ireland 



till the grower conceives it ready for skutching. This 

 bleaching process, has many advantages ; the most ob- 

 vious one is, that it enables the farmer, every time he 

 examines it, to ascertain exactly, by rubbing on his 

 hand, the precise point at which the fermentation has 

 arrived, and thus to perceive the tenacity and strength 

 of his fiax ; while the adhesion of the fibre has been 

 sufficiently weakened, to admit of the skutcher clean- 

 sing it completely of the woody parts. It is, I am ap- 

 prehensive, only the practical flax farmer who is able 

 to judge of the importance, and delicacy of this part of 

 the husbandry. It is so remarkable, that of two acres 

 of flax, under precisely the same seed and culture, 

 and of equal fertility, it frequently happens that the 

 one shall yield a produce thrice the value of the other, 

 merely from superior accuracy in ascertaining the pro- 

 per line of continuing the steeping and bleaching pro- 

 cesses. 



2. Smoking and drying. The Irish seem to possess 

 another advantage in their mode of drying their flax, 

 before they submit it to the skutcher or beater. After 

 the lint has remained a sufficient length of time on the 

 bleaching green, it is gathered up into sheafs, and seems 

 tolerably dry. In this state it is deemed by the Scots 

 growers fully prepared for the flax mill ; but far other- 

 wise by the Irish farmer, who never submits it to the 

 hands of the beaters, until it has undergone a thorough 

 smoking over a peat fire. For this purpose, he raises 

 at the back of a ditch, a small hurdle, thinly wrought 

 with osiers, and.places it on four posts of wood, at the 

 height of four feet above the level of the ground. A 



pretty strong fire of peats being kindled below, the heat 



b^ 



