70 The Cultivation of Flax in Tasmania. 
the ordinary farm-labourers, and secures beforehand the extra 
labour required for harvest work. Twenty acres were pulled 
last year without inconvenience, merely requiring two or three 
extra hands taking seed off and steeping during harvest ; 
spreading on grass and lifting, coming on after harvest. 
Lastly. It furnishes ample in-door employment during the 
winter months and wet weather in breaking, handling, and 
scutching ; during which time these the most expensive 
Operations of the crop are nearly got over without hindrance 
to ordinary farm labour. 
Linseed oil might be extracted were there abundance of 
seed raised. Linseed has been used here as food for calves, 
cows, horses, and pigs. For calves, the quantity required 
for two or three days’ consumption is put in soak for 24 hours, 
then boiled to a jelly and mixed with skim milk, and given 
three times a day. For cows and horses, it is ground into 
fine meal, along with barley or wheat, in the proportion of 
one part linseed to two of grain: it is then made into the 
compound known as ‘“ Warne’s,’ much prized in several 
parts of England for fattening cattle, in preference to oil- 
cake; thus to 150 lbs. boiling water add 84 lbs. of the meal : 
on this alone an old cow and bullock were fattened for farm 
consumption. For farm horses it has been used thus:—one — 
peck or 18 lbs. of the meal was boiled with four buckets 
of water, with which was incorporated the daily consumption 
of wheat straw cut into chaff. On this small quantity, of 
8 lbs. of meal to each horse, six horses were kept in condition 
for two months during the winter: they were only worked 
occasionally however. 
No assertion is made or calculation given in these state- 
ments but such as has actually occurred and come under 
our own observation or experience during the five years the 
Flax crop has been cultivated here. As may be perceived, 
