DISEASES AKD INJURIES TO WHICH IT IS LIABLE. 307 



others by its slender, pale green coloured stems, the stems 

 of the others being either of a reddish or reddish yellow 

 tint. When the crop is attacked by this enemy considerable 

 damage is always done; and where foreign seed has been 

 used, or the subsequent weeding been neglected, the weeds 

 that grow up intermixed with the crop not only deprive it 

 of a large portion of the mineral food materials which would 

 otherwise be available, but also lower the market value 

 of the flax straw, by the increased difficulty they occasion 

 in the steeping and scutching processes. Owing to the 

 size, shape, and general physical characters of the flax 

 seeds, the seeds of other plants may, without any very 

 great difficulty, be separated from them ; at all events, the 

 practice, universally recommended, of only sowing foreign 

 seed sufficient to reproduce seed for the fibre crop of the 

 succeeding year, and keeping the seed crop scrupulously 

 clean, will materially assist the purpose. 



The consideration which the flax cultivation has always 

 received even from the earliest times, and the many and 

 important uses to which its products have of late years been 

 applied, have caused its chemistry to have been well worked 

 out, both by our own and continental chemists. There are 

 few plants entering into regular cultivation that yield to 

 industry and applied science such large returns, giving at 

 the same time remunerative occupation to a large amount 

 of skilled labour. The straw or stem, which in itself has 

 a market value of about 3 per ton, is converted by indus- 

 trial applications into a material dressed fibre having 

 a market value- ranging from 50 to 100 per ton. The 

 seed, whose average price may be taken at 10 to 12 

 per ton, is submitted to a process by which one portion 

 of it, linseed oil, is separated and sold at from 25 to 

 30 per ton, while the residuum, oil-cake, has always a 

 ready market at from 8 to 10 per ton. Even the seed 

 capsules or bolls have a certain feeding value, and should 



