534 Transactions of the American Institute. 



the hard work begins. An active man, if used to the business, can 

 pull from one-fourth to one-third of an acre per day. 



It is pulled in bundles, such as can be clasped with two hands, 

 each handful being bound by a few spears of flax twisted around 

 the same. It is then set up, the haudsful two and two, six or eight 

 in a shock. This costs from eight dollars to twelve dollar per acre. 

 When thoroughly done, and the bolls are dry, the shocks are bound 

 together with straw or flax, double banded, and placed under 

 shelter. The seed is now beaten ofl", the usual process being to 

 strike the seed on a large flat stone, set up at an angle of about 

 forty-five degrees on the barn floor. A more expeditious mode is 

 to crush the head of the bundle between two cylinders, running 

 with a spring, each pair outside of a wooden frame, attached to a 

 horse or water power. A common farming mill, with a flax-seed 

 sieve, cleans the seed — the unbroken bolls falling under, they hav- 

 ing to be threshed afterward. 



The straw is then taken to a smooth meadow and spread evenly, 

 first dropping the handsful a proper distance apart on the ground, 

 and then, with jackknife in hand, cutting and spreading from one 

 side of the field to the other, putting about three acres of flax on 

 one acre of ground. When partially rotted, it is turned with 

 poles, the same as one would turn a swath of grain. Sometimes, if 

 the weather is warm, with frequent showers, it will rot in ten or 

 twelve days; but it generally takes from four to six weeks. It is 

 then taken up by hand and bound in bundles, of about the size of 

 oat bundles. The cost of this, from the time of pulling, is from 

 six dollars to ten dollars per acre. Here the farmers furnish part 

 of the labor, the mill man doing the rest. During these labors 

 there are many contingencies. I once lost a crop by frost just 

 before it came out of the ground, the seed having sprouted. After 

 it is fairly up, a common frost will not injure it. 



Sometimes it will lodge down, and much of it spoil before it is 

 fit to pull. Last year much of it was badly damaged at this time, 

 soon after it was pulled, by hot, rainy weather causing the seed to 

 grow and the straw to mold and rot. Still, I am of the opinion 

 that it is about as sure a crop as corn. 



Able farmers do not like to raise it, because its care consumes all 

 the time between other crops, leaving none for improvements on 

 ftu'ms. Much flax is sown on land hired at twenty-five dollars an 

 acre, and you see that a crop of oats at present prices is quite 

 as profitable to the owner, and does less injury to the soil. Flax 



