260 THE ARDS: FLAX AND POTATOES 



remain down for three years. The old seeds were 

 often manured with seaweed or farmyard manure, and 

 artificials were also bought to keep up the standard of 

 fertility. Here we made our first acquaintance with 

 the flax crop, an acquaintance that was frequently 

 renewed in the course of the next few days, indeed at 

 that time flax was in the air persistently night and day 

 as long as one was in Ulster. The crop is sown in 

 the late spring on land that should be in good con- 

 dition, though not through recent manuring ; according 

 to the experiments of the Irish Department, the only 

 fertilizer that is pretty certain of a return is potash in 

 one of its forms, and that more on account of some 

 secondary effect in causing the plant to resist disease 

 than for its direct nutritive effect. In early August 

 the flax, still quite green and showing immature seed 

 heads but with few or no flowers left, is pulled, not 

 cut ; and because of the large amount of labour re- 

 quired the farmers lend one another men for the 

 purpose, or " do a join," as it is termed. 



After pulling the flax fields look wretchedly foul 

 and weedy ; the land is not cultivated after the crop 

 is up and, as the plant shades the ground but lightly, 

 weeds grow apace. The pulling process also seems to 

 leave whatever weeds there are much more visible than 

 they are on a stubble. The pulled flax is made up 

 into little bundles, tied with rushes wherever the 

 farmer possesses a gathering ground close at hand, 

 otherwise by a wisp of the flax itself, and carted off to 

 the retting pond. In this case the pond was a mere 

 hollow dug out in the rock and filled with rain water, 

 which, in the present dry season, had needed to be 

 supplemented with water carted from a spring. Into 

 the pond the bundles of green flax are thrown, and 

 there weighted down under water by large stones. 



