538 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 825 



diseased material can have little oppor- 

 tunity to develop, being immediately at- 

 tacked by the diseases and placed in com- 

 petition with a much more vigorous plant. 



The power of such parasitic diseases and 

 of such soil infection is illustrated in the 

 ease of numerous garden crops, such as 

 potatoes with potato scab, and cabbage 

 with root-rot, asters with yellows or blight, 

 but it is far more destructive on the field 

 crops which produce seed than upon such 

 heavy rooting plants. The history of the 

 flax crop and its apparent necessary rela- 

 tion to new lands well illustrates the point. 

 Few people believe the flax crop possible 

 of success in any other than approximately 

 virgin soils. Only in the Netherlands 

 under the most intensive farming has the 

 flax crop remained a permanent one. In 

 all other countries it is essentially a new 

 land crop. One, two, three or four paying 

 crops have been removed from new land 

 and then the grower has ceased to handle 

 the crop, whether or not he wished, as the 

 yield no longer payed expenses on the 

 work. 



These should be interesting facts to west- 

 ern farmers who dislike to see one valuable 

 crop in our rotation disappear, and espe- 

 cially to know that during the last ten 

 years the center of flax seed production 

 has moved over 200 miles to the west. In- 

 teresting not because it is coming your 

 way but because it is going. Even the 

 transitory tow mills can not keep up with 

 the chase. Statistics prove that there is no 

 exception to the rule so far as the growth 

 of flax seed is concerned. It is difficult to 

 compile statistics from those available to 

 show these facts, for, during the past ten 

 years, the actual output of seed has tended 

 to increase in North Dakota as a whole. It 

 is only when we visit a shipping point and 

 notice the land areas from which crop is no 

 longer taken and those from which the 



seed is now coming that we know the truth 

 of the matter. While a particular shipping 

 point may j'et be sending out more flax 

 seed than it did ten years ago, we find that 

 the source of the seed is from new lands, 

 and that the farmers are hauling it longer 

 distances to the shipping point. However, 

 many of the older points in the state well 

 illustrate this feature when contrasted with 

 the newer shipping stations. Thus, for ex- 

 ample, in 1902 the eastern town of Buffalo 

 shipped 1,326 tons, while in 1909 the ship- 

 ment from the same elevators was 520 tons. 

 The new town of Richardton shipped a 

 few bushels of flax seed in 1905 and in 

 1909 was shipping 814 tons of seed. Leeds 

 in 1902 handled 5,075 tons of flax seed 

 from one of its two lines of railway ele- 

 vators, while the same set of elevators in 

 1909 handled only 120 tons of seed in con- 

 trast with Beach, a new station opened up 

 for flax • seed shipment in 1905, which 

 handled 11,210 tons of seed in 1909. 

 Devils Lake, Larimore, Cummings, Wahpe- 

 ton, Landon, all originally great shipping 

 points for flax seed in the eastern part of 

 North Dakota, show records of practically 

 no tonnage in 1909, while small towns such 

 as Page, Hope, Stephen, surrounded by 

 new lands, show shipments in 1909 exceed- 

 ing 1,000 tons each. This is but the story 

 of the transient nature of the flax crop as 

 it now stands. The story not of its disap- 

 pearance by lost fertility, but through dis- 

 ease infection of the soil. 



It is interesting to know that many 

 farmers have verified our conclusions that 

 this disappearance of the crop is essen- 

 tially unnecessary. Proper seed selection 

 and seed disinfection associated with crop 

 rotation will place the yield of flax seed 

 always upon a profitable basLs, the yield 

 being considerably greater than anything 

 that could be originally obtained. 



This brings me to the real point of my 



