THE PROBLEM OF LYNCHETS. 



not thoroughly understood by any, except professed flax 

 jobbers." These were men who undertook to cultivate, gather, 

 and sell the flax crop of a farmer, and who would sometimes 

 rent land for a single season for the purpose of growing flax. 

 In 1799 land was let to flaxmen in North Lincolnshire at £1 to 

 £\ an acre. And in West Somerset, where flax used to be 

 grown in large quantity, nearly every farm had its "vlex pit." 



In fine, the law that compelled farmers to cultivate flax, the 

 permission to do so in any place they were able to secure, the 

 importance of suitable soil, and the necessity of prompt and 

 efficient drainage that could best be obtained on a sloping 

 surface will account for a good many of the numerous lynchets 

 in Dorset. 



Those persons who know Marseilles will remember a part of 

 the city called Cannebiere. Above the wide quay that bears 

 this name rises a succession of terraces, along each of which 

 now runs a street. The appellation is from the Celtic word 

 kanabe, still used in Provence, which means hemp, and is allied, 

 of course, to the Greek nJa-waBis and to the French chanvre. 

 Canabasseur is a weaver, and the term Canabiere can be applied 

 both to a place for the cultivation and for the storage of hemp, 

 which used to be largely grown in that part of France. In 

 Breton the equivalent word is kanabek. 



26. We pass on to the subject of water lynchets. In A. S. 

 charters the usual name for an artificial conduit is crimdel, which 

 is a contraction of the older form crundivylle. It is found in a 

 grant of land in Wilts by King Eadwic to his thegn Wulfric in 

 956 . . . I^onon endlang mearce on middel hlinch . . . 

 jjonon eft on Crundpylle (C.S. III. 145): "thence along the 

 boundary to the middle lynchet . . . thence back to the 

 crundwell." 



This word is a compound of the two terms tank or cistern, 

 and water spring, with perhaps the primary meaning, well-head. 

 Its contraction, crundel, still exists in Hampshire, where it 

 denotes " a strip of covert dividing open country, always in a 

 dip, usually with running water in the middle " (Wright). Such 



