The Cultivation of Flax in Tasmania. 71 
much disappointment and great expense attended the first 
four years ; in truth, they were mere experiments during that 
time: but with the crop now in hand, although the produce 
of a season of extreme drought and scarcity, the results are 
becoming satisfactory. 
In conclusion, it may not be uninteresting to consider a 
few of the results which would attend its cultivation, as one 
crop in a good course of rotation with grain, &c. Taking 
30,000 acres (not half the amount devoted to wheat as per 
returns of 1849) as one-fifth part of the cultivated land of 
the colony, it would give, at only 1 ton to every 5 acres 6000 
tons of Flax, which, valued at say £50 per ton, would give 
£300,000; 10 bushels seed per acre, 300,000 bushels at 
6s. per bushel, would give £90,000—together £390,000; 
circulating, in the employment of 10,000 tons of shipping, 
mercantile commissions, &c., and labourers’ hire, no less a 
sum than £270,000, and leaving £120,000, besides value of 
waste, &c., in producers’ hands to improve and carry out a 
judicious system of agriculture. Without mentioning ulterior 
results, such as the employment of weavers, &c., the em- 
ployment of hecklers to heckle the Flax would enable us 
to send home the finer portion only, greatly increased in 
value, and to retain the tow from the heckles to make coarse 
sacking. Again, the employment of crushing mills, &c., 
for the extraction of the oil from the seed, the manufacture 
of linseed-cake wherewith to fatten cattle, &c., are too im- 
portant to be lost sight of in such calculations. 
Ireland produces some 40,000 tons; why may not this 
colony produce 6000? Jn addition to what Ireland pro- 
duces, the United Kingdom imports 90,000 tons, paying an- 
nually for foreign Flax and seed no less than £12,000,000 
