40 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



A Cheap Cure for Vermin upon Cattle. 



Joscpli Nichols, H(ines<lale, Petni., givt-s tlic ftillDwiii;^- simple ionu'(|y for 

 lii^t' upon domestic animals: Having an old rnaro that would n(jt work nor 

 brocd, he Icl't licr to shift for herself among other stock in the yard, and 

 tluring the winter she became extremely lous}'. In the sjiring he used her 

 to pack bags of plaster (ground gypsum) out to the field, and it sifted 

 through and covered her so that she looked like a white horse instead of 

 her natural color. The result was that the lice all died. Applications of 

 gypsum to cattle have proved equally successful. 



Several members inquired whether the aj^plication would be equally efli- 

 cacious at other seasons, since feeding cattle grass cures lice. 



Does Flaxseed Hybridize ? 



A. Farmer, Ikirlington, Wis., says: 



" I wish to inquire of the Farmers' Club wlictlior flaxseed hybridizes with 

 yellow seed. I sowed a piece of ground last year with flaxseed, in which 

 only now and then a yellow seed could be found — one-tenth of the seed 

 from that crop was of yellow seed." 



Mr. Solon Robinson. — How can any one tell what is meant by "yellow 

 seed ? " Is it a wild seed, or is it what is known in England and this coun- 

 try as charlock, the raphanus raphanidrvm, or sinapis avensis, the latter 

 being known in some places as wild mustard ? If it is either of these, we 

 can assure the inquirer that flax does not hybridize with it, and we do not 

 know any plant with which it does hybridize. 



}Av. ^Vm. R. Prince. — Common flax, Linum usifalis)<imum, os is well 

 known, is cultivated for the fibre or thread obtained from it, and for the oil 

 wliich we extract from its seeds. It is an annual plant, long cultivated in 

 Europe and America. The flowers are usually blue, but a wliite flowering 

 variety is extensively cultivated at Riga, in Russia, and in Belgium, where, 

 by way of distinction from the yellow varieties, it is called Lin royale. 

 They cultivate in Europe four varieties of the yellow flowering flax, and of 

 those the Riga variety is the most extensive. The plants are of taller 

 growth and less branched than the other varieties, and consequently yield 

 n much larger staple. We have a similar tall growing variety in America, 

 which is probably identical. This length of staple is a most inqmrtant 

 advantage, and as the flax culture is now being extensively developed, <nir 

 cultivators otjght to make it a point to obtain their supply of seed from the 

 best im])roved varieties, and some especially of the tall yellow flowering 

 kind. 



There is but one species of flax indigenous to North America, the Linum 

 virginiannm. It attains a height of one and a half to two feet. I 

 am not aware that its textile merits have been tested. The writer of the 

 letter from Huilington, Wis., suggests that our cnnmion flax plant hud 

 hybridized with u yellow flowering weed of that vicinity. 1 assert posi- 

 tively not, as the two j)lants referred to arc of distinct genera, and there is 

 no more possibility i;f hybridizing two distinct families of plants than there 

 is of changing tiie progeny of horses and cattle merely because they graze in 

 the same field. 



