260 



interested in the management of the soil, to unite in counter- 

 acting the impending evil. " In union is strength." Com- 

 prised in the agricultural community is a power, which during 

 years of unparalleled difficulties, the world was not able, either 

 by force or treachery, to subdue ; but which, under the jjre- 

 sent emergency, is overawed by the machinations of a compa- 

 rative handful of cotton-spinners. This power can no longer 

 lie dormant. It must be roused from the sleep of apathy, into 

 life and action, or it will soon be too late. Destruction, in 

 the garb of Free Trade, is at our very doors. But, unlike their 

 clamorous opponents, who vainly compass sea and land to find 

 a remedy for our national distress, the landowners, agricul- 

 turists, and friends of home commerce must hold fast the bar 

 of protection, and be guided by the finger of an all-bountiful 

 Creator, which invariably points to our own soil whence the 

 remedy can alone be derived — to a soil that abounds in other 

 resources besides turnips, grass, and corn, of which the most 

 important, at the present crisis, is the flax-crop; because, if 

 cultivated to the extent required by our spinning-mills for the 

 fibre, and by our agriculturists for the seed as a substitute for 

 oil-cake, it would afford employment to the redundant and 

 rural cotton-mauufacluring population of the whole kingdom, 

 and at once put a stop to the cry for employment, and the rage 

 for Free Trade. 



I have shown, in my former writings, some astounding facts 

 relative to the value of flax and linseed; one of which is, that 

 500,000 acres are required to supply the demand of this 

 country alone. Now, when we consider how inadequately the 

 soil remunerates under our present system, and the consequent 

 depression of trade, it must surely be acknowledged that the 

 appropriation of such an immense breadth of land to the growth 

 of this prolific plant, would be attended with the most bene- 

 ficial results throughout the kingdom. For instance, the 

 average value of 500,000 acres of flax, independent of the seed, 

 oil, and cake, exceeds six millions of money. 



This enormous sum is annually sent out of England, to pur- 

 chase foreign flax of foreign farmers, to the encouragement of 

 foreign agriculture. Suppose the corn crops sent to market 

 were less than usual, by 500,0C0 acres, the price must neces- 



