108 



oil is expressed, and the stalks are thrown aside as useless,* 

 but in every other country where it is raised, its fibres are 

 woven into cloth. 



The common flax (linum usitatissimum) is an annual plant, 

 which shoots forth in slender upright fibrous stalks about the 

 thickness of a crow-quill. — These stalks are hollow pipes, 

 surrounded by a fibrous bark or rind, the filaments of which, 

 divested of all extraneous matter and carefully prepared, arc 

 the material of cambric, linen, and other similar manufactures. 

 The leaves, placed alternately on the stem, are long, narrow, 

 and of a greyish colour. When the plant has attained the 

 height of about two and a half or three feet, the stem then 

 divides itself into slender foot-stalks, which are terminated by 

 small blue indented flowers; these produce large globular seed 

 vessels, divided within into ten cells, each containing a bright 

 slippery elongated seed. 



Although flax is easy of growth, its quality depends very 

 much on fitness of soil and situation. Low grounds, and those 

 which have received deposits left by the occasional overflowing 

 of rivers, or where water is found not very far from the 

 surface, are deemed the most favourable situations for its 

 culture. It is attributed to this last circumstance that Zea- 

 land produces the finest flax grown in Holland. Preparatory 

 to the cultivation of this plant, it is not necessary that the 

 ground should be very deeply furrowed by the plough, but it 

 should be reduced to a fine friable mould by the repeated use 

 of the harrow. Two or three bushels of seed are required for 

 each acre of ground, if scattered broadcast. Care is taken to 

 distribute the seed evenly, and the earth is then raked or* 

 lightly harrowed over. When flax is raised to be manufactured 

 into cambric and fine lawns, double the quantity of seed is 

 sown in the same space of ground — the plants growing nearer 

 to each other having a greater tendency to shoot up in long- 

 slender stalks ; and, as the same number of fibres are usually 

 found in each plant, these will be of course finer in proportion. 



When the crop grows short and branchy, it is esteemed more 

 valuable for seed than for its fibrous bark, and then it is 



* Dr. Roxburgh. 



