xu 



accusation, and feel that the stigma ought to be re- 

 moved. But how to accomplish this desideratum is a 

 problem they have failed to solve. Nor can it be solved, 

 except through the national adoption of the flax crop ; 

 because the redundant population would obtain the 

 employment, agriculture the support, and trade the 

 encouragement which each so greatly needs ; because 

 the formation of linseed into food to fatten cattle, and 

 the sale of flax, will be fresh sources of wealth to the 

 British farmer ; and because an impetus would be given 

 to home trade in general by the increased price of wages, 

 and by the consequent increased consumption of all the 

 common necessaries of life. 



In truth, it is impossible to form an estimate of the 

 advantages the community would derive ; for, inde- 

 pendent of all pecuniary consideration, moral, civil, and 

 religious order are involved in the magnitude of the 

 undertaking. 



The redundant juvenile population, in particular, has 

 long been the bane of society : an irremediable evil, 

 except through permanent employment ; an evil, the 

 removal of which has for years excited general solici- 

 tude. But, except the cultivation of flax, nothing 

 effective has yet been devised. Effective, because, if the 

 poor-rates atTrimingham have been reduced to one rate 

 in three-quarters of a year, at threepence in the pound, 

 through the employment afforded by flax-culture, 

 it is but reasonable to assume that the same effect 

 would be produced in every parish throughout the 

 kingdom.* 



Less than one acre of land to a hundred, now in culti- 



* See p. 50. 



