178 [Assembly 



ROCKY MOUNTAIN FLAX. 



By Alexander Walsh, Lansingburgh, N. Y. 



We know of no plant which seems to better deserve an effort for 

 its introduction into the class of cultivated vegetation, than the one 

 above named. The common flax plant is an annual j is exposed to 

 the depredations of many insects; to get the full amount of the crop 

 it is necessary it should be pulled; and yet with all these drawbacks, 

 it is a valuable crop, and indispensable for many purposes. If a 

 plant possessing the same valuable qualities as the common flax, yet 

 which would be perennial, and could be cradled or mown at maturi- 

 ty, thus giving an annual succession of crops from the same root, 

 could be discovered and brought into use among us, and particularly 

 in the fertile valleys and prairies of the Western States, the advan- 

 tages would certainly be very great. Such a plant is the flax of 

 the Rocky Mountains; and the individual or the society that shall 

 introduce it into cultivation, should it answer present indications, 

 will be considered as benefiting the agriculture of the country essen- 

 tially. Of the various notices which we have seen of this plant, we 

 select the following, as more particularly describing its appearance, 

 and the extent of its growth in those regions: 



Mr. Parker, in his excellent narrative of his journey across the 

 Rocky Mountains, from the Mississippi to the Pacific, says: " Flax 

 is a spontaneous production of this country. In everything except 

 that it is perennial, it resembles the flax that is cultivated in the 

 United States; the stalks, the boll, the seed, the blue flower, closed 

 in the day-time and open in the evening and morning. The Indians 

 use it in making fishing-nets. Fields of this flax might be managed 

 by the husbandman in the same manner as meadows for hay. It 

 would need to be mowed like grass, for the roots are too large, and 

 run too deep in the earth, to be pulled as ours is; and an advantage 

 that this would have, is, that there would be a saving of plowing and 

 sowing." This was on a branch of Lewis, or Snake River, of the 

 Columbia. 



In a late journal of a passage across these mountains, by Mr. 

 Oakley, of Illinois, under date of the 21st of July, 1836, occurs the 

 following: 



