GRADES AND PRICES OF FLAX SEED 249 



removed by a process known as breaking. The straw is 

 either pounded with wooden mallets or bent in some sort of 

 machine, but the best quality of fiber is obtained when the 

 work is done by hand with mallets. Any coarse fiber, bark, 

 or wood which remains is removed by a process known as 

 scutching, which consists of beating the bundles of fiber with 

 a series of paddles. This is sometimes done by hand, but 

 usually by machinery. The fiber is then sorted according 

 to its quality and baled into bundles of about 200 pounds 

 each. It is kept in these bales until it is spun into thread 

 and woven into cloth, either alone or in combination with 

 cotton. Some of the finest laces and fabrics are made from 

 linen thread. The coarser fiber, or tow, is used in the manu- 

 facture of twine and in upholstering. 



307. Market Grades of Flaxseed. Minneapolis is one 

 of the principal markets for flaxseed, and the official grades 

 fixed by the Minneapolis Board of Grain Appeals may be 

 taken as standard. These grades are No. 1 Northwestern, 

 No. 1, No. 2, and No grade. No. 1 Northwestern flaxseed 

 " shall be mature, sound, dry, and sweet. It shall be 

 northern grown. The maximum quantity of field, stack, 

 storage, or other damaged seed intermixed shall not exceed 

 12 1/2 per cent. The minimum weight shall be 51 pounds to 

 the measured bushel, commercially pure seed." No. 1 

 flaxseed may contain 25 per cent of immature or damaged 

 seed, and weigh not less than 50 pounds to the bushel. 

 The other grades include flax not fit for either of the higher 

 grades mentioned. 



308. Prices and Acre Value. The average farm price of 

 flaxseed in the United States for the ten years from 1902 to 

 1911 was $1.25 per bushel, with a range from 84.4 cents in 

 1905 to $2.32 in 1910. The 1910 crop was little more than 

 half as large as the normal one, which accounts for the high 



