The Cultivation of Flax in Tasmania. 69 
viously, the adjoining land with English and Cape barley. 
The latter crops were only a few inches high when mown, 
and would not have been cut down at all but from the general 
scarcity of fodder. Even the autumn-sowncrops of grain, 
which received the benefit of the winter rains, were hardly 
one-third of the usual average; while the Flax crop. (now 
under hand) is certainly a full half above the average. 
4th. It is a hardy plant: in several instances we have 
pulled a self-sown crop which had stood all the year, and 
good Flax was obtained from it. 
5th. It is not an exhausting crop. From a fallow field 
sown with wheat in the autumn of 1848 two separate acres 
were reserved for Flax, and sown in the spring: both crops 
were good. ‘The succeeding year, 1849, the whole field was 
sown with wheat. On that portion which had borne wheat the 
previous year the crop was very indifferent ; where the Flax 
erew, the wheat, during its several stages, was distinctly 
marked by a luxuriant growth, and at harvest was quite 
equal, if not superior, to the first crop of wheat when after 
fallow. This year there is a field of wheat on which a strong 
healthy plant is erowing, from which Flax was taken last 
year, and wheat the previous year. ‘The Flax crop, therefore, 
is at least not so exhausting as wheat. The best crops of 
wheat follow Flax. In no proper system of rotation of crops, 
of which Flax should be one, would it displace an acre of 
wheat. 
6th. The best crops are obtained from land (if moderately 
clean) under fallow, after grass, or on new land preparatory 
to grain crops. It may, however, be taken after wheat with 
advantage. 
7th. As a crop, it comes in admirably after hay-making, 
and before harvest, and does not interfere with harvest opera- 
tions, but rather otherwise; inasmuch as it actively employs 
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