ORDER LINACEJE. FLAX PLANT. 381 



notwithstanding various inducements held out by the legislature ; 

 for its crops are of inferior value to corn ; and it is found to 

 render the soil more unfit for the subsequent growth of other 

 crops, than does almost any other cultivated vegetable. The 

 principal supplies required for British manufacture are drawn 

 from Russia, the Netherlands, and Prussia ; some is also brought 

 from France and Egypt, and even from New South Wales. 

 The annual imports vary from 40,000 to 7^,000 tons of flax ; 

 and about two million bushels of linseed. Flax is grown, how- 

 ever, in Lincolnshire, Somersetshire, and Yorkshire, to a small 

 extent ; it is more cultivated in Scotland ; and nearly all that is 

 required for the extensive linen factories of Ireland is the produce 

 of that country. 



545. The common Flax-plant is an annual, which shoots 

 forth slender upright hollow stalks, about the thickness of a 

 crow-quill. These are surrounded by a fibrous bark or rind, 

 containing woody bundles intermixed with cellular tissue. When 

 the plant has attained the length of about 2J or 3 feet, it divides 

 into slender flower-stalks ; but there is a considerable difference 

 in the dimensions of the stem, according to the soil, season, &c. 

 This difference governs the treatment of the plant ; for, if the 

 stem be short and disposed to branch, the plant is considered 

 more valuable for its seed than for its fibrous bark, and is not 

 gathered until its seeds are fully matured ; whilst if the stem 

 grows long and straight, all care of the seed becomes a secondary 

 consideration, and the flax is pulled at the most favourable 

 period for obtaining good fibres, which is a little after the wither- 

 ing of the blossom, before the seeds are quite ripe. The Dutch 

 are accustomed to lay up the plants in stacks, as soon as they 

 have pulled them ; experience having shown that, in most 

 instances, seed will ripen after the parent-plant has been pulled, 

 provided that it be not detached from it, being supplied by the 

 sap which it contains ; and thus both good flax and seeds may 

 be obtained from the same crop. The stems are freed from the 

 leaves and seed-vesels by a process called rippling; which means 

 passing them through a sort of comb with long teeth, by which 

 these parts are torn off. The flax is then placed in water, to 



