112 



It may be further observed, that although it is of much im- 

 portance, yet it very seldom happens that much attention is 

 bestowed to separate the different sorts of flax from each other, 

 in pulling the crops. In most fields there are varieties of 

 soils ; of course, some parts of a field will produce fine flax, 

 others coarse; some long and some short; in a word, crops of 

 different lengths and qualities. It cannot be supposed that 

 all these sorts of flax will undergo an equal degree of watering, 

 grassing, breaking, and heckling, without sustaining great 

 injury. Therefore, when flax of various qualities is promis- 

 cuously mixed together in pulling, it is impossible to prevent 

 some part of it from being lost in the after-management ; a 

 loss which luight be avoided with a small share of attention 

 and some additional trouble when the crop is pulled. 



It is certain, in very many cases, that the inattention of flax- 

 farmers to the above very necessary precaution is the cause 

 why crops of flax often turn out of so little value, and is the 

 principal reason why the proportion of tow or inferior flax so 

 often exceeds, in ordinary seasons, that of superior quality. 



With regard to dew retting, although it is in general the 

 practice, where flax is cultivated in this country, to immerse 

 it in water for some time after it is pulled, yet in Dorsetshire 

 and the neighbourhood it is seldom done. There the flax is 

 allowed to arrive at that state in which the harl parts most 

 easily from the boon or reed, by a more gradual process, that 

 of ripening or producing the necessary putrefaction by the 

 action and influence of the dew, which is nothing more than 

 exposing the flax to the influence of the weather, thinly spread 

 out upon a grass field for a longer period than is necessary, 

 when the operation of watering has been previously performed. 

 When the flax has been so long exposed as to be judged sufficient 

 for effecting the separation of the harl, nothing more is re- 

 quisite than putting it up in parcels or bundles, in order to its 

 being broken and scutched. 



With respect to the produce, there is scarcely any crop that 

 is more variable than that of flax in the quantity and quality. 

 From twenty to seventy stones of fourteen pounds each have 

 been produced from an acre of land ; but from forty to fifty 

 stones may be considered a medium crop. 



