48 



THE ILLINOIS FAEMER. 



Feb. 



Culture of Flax. 



Tuscola, January 28, 1861. 



Editok Illixois Farmer — Dear Sir : I -wish 

 to sow one or two hundred acres of flax, with a 

 view to make money out of the seed. Can you 

 inform me of parties who would contract for the 

 crop ? What can I do with the lint ? Any in- 

 formation that you can give will be duly appre- 

 ciated. R. 



Flax must be sown on clean land, deeply 

 plowed, in the spring, and sown as fast as 

 the land is plowed. It can be sown from 

 the middle of March to the middle ot May. 

 The ground must be in fine tilth, and to this 

 end we would first harrow thoroughly, roll 

 and sow, harrow in the seed, and again roll, 

 This will give a good, smooth well pulveri- 

 zed surface, on which the seed is early sown, 

 half a bushel per acre. Sometimes it is 

 sown on prairie sod, broken up in May. This 

 will do very well if the prairie has been 

 pastured for some years, otherwise we would 

 not commend this practice. When flax is 

 sown for the seed, the lint is of little value, 

 as the staple is short and branching. It is 

 cut with the common reaper, which makes 

 it still shorter. Near Chicago, the flax straw, 

 after passing through the threshing machine 

 or otherwise divested of its seed, is sold at 

 two to three dollars per ton on the farm. 

 This is worked up into tow for the city 

 upholsters, who pay for it one and a half 

 cents a pound. A ton makes about six hun- 

 dred pounds of the tow. The machinery 

 to make tow costs about six hundred dol- 

 lars, and will make up about two tons a day 

 of the straw. The labor is dirty and un- 

 healthy, and but few will engage in it — the 

 profits are not large. On good, well cultiva- 

 ted land, the crop will average about twelve 

 bushels to the acre — the average price may 

 be set at ninety cents. In thrashing, a large 

 quantity of the balls break off, and have to 

 be again subject to the flail or the roller, so 

 as to crush out the sead. But few machines 

 will thrash flax, as it winds about the cylin- 

 icr. Unless some process can be devised 



to use the lint to advantage, we do not think 

 flax will pay as good an average as most 

 other farm crops. The straw is only of 

 value near cities and paper mills, for the 

 tow will not bear much of a freight bill at 

 present prices. We have had some experi- 

 ence in flax culture; when we could not 

 save the straw it was a losing business, and 

 with the straw, no better than spring wheat 

 at seventy-five cents a bushel, and when we 

 were within two miles of the oil mill that 

 paid Chicago prices for the seed. There 

 is this advantage in the culture of flax, it is 

 an excellent crop to prepare for wheat 

 whether spring or winter. We have no idea 

 that flax will ever supercede the use of cot- 

 ton to any great extent in textile fabrics, and 

 we believe the idea of spinning it on cotton 

 machinery has been given up by practical 

 men. It may do for politicians to harp on, 

 but the prospect of success becomes as far 

 in the dim distance, or even more so than 

 when Clausen startled the world with his 

 flax-cotton theory. We have greater faith 

 in the aclimation of the cotton plant than 

 to reduce the flax to the condition of cot- 

 ton. We would not discouraire the culture 

 of flax for seed and for tow, for both ate 

 needed, but at the same time, we would not 

 recommend its culture a hundred and fifty 

 miles from the oil mill, for the freight would 

 cut out the profit. Flax seed is a bad arti- 

 cle to ship in sacks, as they must be not 

 only strong, but tight ; to be safe, two sacks 

 should be used, one in which the seed is put, 

 and the other over it, in the same manner 

 that coffee is shipped ; this will insure safety, 

 otherwise there might be a large loss, as 

 from the oily nature of the seed, it will pass 

 out of a very small rent in the sack. 



Sweet Potatoes- 



This is a very desirable vegetable, second 

 only to the Irish potato and the cabbage, 

 and it certainly should be more generally 

 planted. We have not failed of a fair crop 



