IMPORTANCE OF SPECIAL CROPS. 2 5 7; 



and must be constantly and regularly supplied. Our 

 secondary wants,^clothing and other necessaries and com- 

 forts, are neither so urgent nor so constant. Any irregu- 

 larity in the supply is not attended with such serious 

 consequences as in the supply of food ; and it is far more 

 politic and more advantageous to a country to secure, as 

 far as possible, within its own resources, those produc- 

 tions which are essential to the daily existence of its 

 inhabitants, than to rely upon the produce of other coun- 

 tries for assistance in making up the necessary supplies. 



In this country our agriculture has, from many causes, 

 tended rather to the cultivation of food- producing crops 

 than of those ministering to the secondary wants of our 

 nature; for these we have necessarily to rely largely upon 

 the productions of other countries, as the area of our own 

 is stationary, while our population and its wants are 

 rapidly increasing; and although we have still a large 

 portion of surface in an uncultivated state, its capabilities, 

 even under an improved system of farming, would not 

 probably be more than sufficient to provide the food- 

 materials for which at present we are indebted to the 

 agricultural resources of other countries. 



Still, we have a few amongst our "Farm Crops" which 

 have been for a long period, and are still, cultivated in this 

 country for special purposes, and which form a marked 

 feature in the agriculture of some districts. Of these FLAX 

 is one of the most important. It certainly claims prece- 

 dence of the others on the score of antiquity, as from the 

 earliest periods of our history we have evidence of its exist- 

 ence as a cultivated plant. The important services that flax 

 has rendered to mankind have secured for it a record from 

 the earliest times. In the Bible we find frequent mention 

 made of it, both as flax in its growing state and in its 

 manufactured condition as linen ; and on various Egyptian 

 monuments the plant itself, and . the preparation of its 



