4 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



ralist describes the different qualities of flax respec- 

 tively produced by each country, with a particularity 

 which argues that the manufacture of linen was 

 already become an important branch of commerce 

 to many nations. We learn from the same authority 

 that the flax of Spain surpassed that of every other 

 country in the fineness of its fibre, while it acquired 

 a peculiar brilliancy by being steeped in the waters 

 of the river which falls into the sea near Tarragona, 

 It is curious to find how little the present manner of 

 preparing flax differs from that described by Pliny. 

 The linen manufactured from this substance was 

 not in very general use as an article of clothing ; but 

 it appears to have been extensively employed in 

 navigation. Pliny represents that ships were then 

 " crowded with numerous linen sails, by which dan- 

 gerous practice men courted death." At the present 

 day scarcely any of the sail-cloth used in the Medi 

 terranean is made qf flax or of hemp, but of cotton. 



The produce of flax was introduced into England 

 by the Romans. It was subsequently discovered 

 that the plant itself could be successfully trans- 

 planted to the British soil ; but we may infer that it 

 was not yet introduced into England at the time of 

 the Norman Conquest, since it is not enumerated 

 among the titheable articles of that period. Had it 

 been then cultivated, there is little doubt that it 

 would have been discovered by the clergy, and in- 

 serted by them in their tithe list. It was not until 

 1175 that flax arid hemp were classed by the council 

 of Westminster among the titheable productions of 

 the earth *. 



For a very long time the English government 



uniformly held out encouragement for the growth of 



flax and hemp, both in the mother country and in the 



.colonies, with the view of supplying our manufac- 



* Macpherson's Anuals of Commerce. 



