52 



which this eminent house requires every year is fifty thousand. 

 And when we remember that there are many other eminent 

 films in the kingdom that require proportionable quantities, it 

 may well be asked. How many thousand acres must be annually 

 grown to supply the demand ? I reply, nearly 500,000, and that 

 an extraordinary demand would be, directly and indirectly, 

 occasioned for labour such as the redundant agricultural popu- 

 lation could not supply. 



The most efficacious plan of extending the cultivation of 

 flax throughout the kingdom would be by the reorganization 

 of the National Flax and Agricultural Improvement Associa- 

 tion, of which the following is the prospectus : — 



National Flax and Agricultural Improvement Association, formed 

 for the purpose of awarding Instruction and Assistance in the 

 Cultivation of Flax, the Use of the Seed to Fatten Cattle, Box 

 Feeding, Summer Grazing, Sfc. Sfc. 



The nobility, clergy, gentry, and yeomanry, are earnestly 

 solicited to join this Association, which offers the prospect of 

 finding immediate employment for a larj^e portion of the re- 

 dundant population, and of advancing the agricultural and 

 commercial interests of the United Kingdom. 



The National Association was formed at Ipswich on the 3rd 

 of November, 1843; on which occasion many specimens of 

 flax and linseed of superior quality were exhibited from 

 various counties, proving that the soil and climate of this 

 country are peculiarly adapted to the culture of the plant. 



From a series of experiments made during the past four 

 years, and now in extensive operation, particularly in Norfolk, 

 it has been incontestably proved that a compound of flax-seed, 

 with grain, pulse, or chaff, for fattening cattle, is far superior 

 to foreign oil-cake ; and if used in connexion with box-feeding 

 and summer-grazing, will enable every farmer in Great Britain 

 to fatten more than double his usual number of stock, and render 

 him for ever independent of foreign aid, both for food for his 

 cattle and manure for his land. Hence it will readily be seen that 

 a more abundant supply of corn, meat, wool, leather, tallow, oil, 

 flax, and hemp, &c. &c., must be produced, and the merchant. 



