446 [Assembly 



water, chemical means were employed to facilitate the process 

 without injury to the material. If land was clean and in good 

 order, fiax might be grown without manure. But the farmer 

 could not, under the present system of steeping, both grow it 

 and prepare it for the manufacturer. With regard to the thick 

 and thin sowing, that question had reference to the object of the 

 cultivator, namely, whether a fine fibre and little seed were re- 

 quired, or a coarser fibre with a full crop of seed. On the banks 

 of the Lys, in Belgium, where the finest flax had been grown for 

 centuries, and used for making the finest lace, they practised 

 thick sowing, three and a half bushels per acre, and obtained 

 about fourteen bushels of seed per acre, but the stems were long 

 and straight, without branches and the longest fibre was obtained. 

 In Ireland and Russia thin sowing was practised, from two to 

 two and a half bushels per acre, and from sixteen to twenty 

 bushels of seed were obtained ; but the stems of the flax branched 

 out more, and an inferior fibre was the result. It would be the 

 safest plan for beginners in this country to sow thin, and thus get 

 more linseed and straw. He concluded by remarking that if 

 M. Claussen succeeded in his laudable endeavors, so much the 

 better would it be for the farmers of this country. 



Mr. Macartney thought that the average growth of flax in Ire- 

 land had fallen off. He referred to Lord Clarendon's liberal aid 

 in promoting its cultivation in that part of the United Kingdom, 

 to the mode in which the factors purchased the crops, to the cost 

 of conveyance, and to Schenck's improvement in steeping. 



Mr. Hammond had grown flax in Norfolk, but, finding no mar- 

 ket for his produce, he had sent his flax to be manufactured into 

 linen for his own shirts. He had also had several of the cot- 

 tages on his estate thatched with the straw, and more beautiful 

 thatch he never saw. 



Mr. Fuller, M. P., had also grown flax, in Sussex, but he had 

 no better success in getting it olf his hands ; and when he offer- 

 ed it to a large manufacturing house, he was told that they could 

 only give him linen in return for it. 



Mr. Shelley remarked that there was no difficulty in farmers 



