24 



to sun and rain to loosen the flax fibre from the inner and outer 

 portions of the stalk. 



It was next stacked or stored ready for u breaking." This 

 was done by a machine consisting of a series of fixed, horizon- 

 tal, hard wood slats, three fourths of an inch thick and an inch 

 apart, sustained, edges upward, upon a frame two feet and a 

 half high. To these, hinged at one end, was an upper corre- 

 sponding series. If brought together, the slats of the two inter- 

 mingled. When alternately raised and lowered, the flax stalks 

 placed between them were broken and loosened from the fibre. 



The next process was that of " scutching." The broken 

 stalks were held by left handfuls over the upper edge of an 

 upright block or board, while by repeated blows of a broad, 

 wooden-bladed knife, held in the right hand, their loose bark 

 and wood were separated from the flax. 



The last operation was that of "heckling," or combing. 

 This, like the weekly combing of her boy's head by an easy- 

 going mother, was not altogether a slight one. It consisted of 

 separating the flax from the tow by drawing the tangled mass 

 through the upright steel teeth of a stationary comb. 



Flax was not only a home product, but was raised for home 

 manufacture and use. It was spun upon a foot-wheel and 

 woven upon a hand loom, by female members of the household, 

 for sheets, table cloths, and under garments. The factory was 

 yet unborn and a hundred years oft' in the unknown future. 



When bleached, this home-made linen rivalled the snow in 

 whiteness, was durable, and, to appreciative eyes, beautiful. 

 The tow was manufactured into coarser fabrics. The cloth 

 made from this, imperfectly cleansed from pointed fragments 

 of bark, was often converted into trousers for the boys and 

 men, and served the double office of a covering and an irritant 

 to the parts which these encased. Possibly some old boy may 

 be here present to-day who has unaflectionate remembrances of 

 such trousers. If so, in all probability he would hardly care to 

 have me repeat the emphatic expletives they may have caused 

 him to utter, and of which it is hoped that he has long ago 

 repented. 



Peas seem to have been sown broadcast in considerable 



