144 CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF LINSEED. 
But that it is also ready to change its habit, is evident 
from facts to be detailed respecting the experiments which have 
been made in India. I have also been informed that in a 
recent experiment made by Mr. Burn, in Sindh, with thick 
sowing and irrigation, it grew at once to upwards of two 
feet. I have no doubt that, with a repetition of the process 
of thick sowing for a few times, the Indian seed would produce 
plants with tall, straight, and little-branched stems, each with 
but comparatively few bolls and seeds. 
A perfectly white variety of Linseed is common in the 
Saugur and Nerbuddah territories, which was brought to the 
notice of the Agricultural Society of India by Col. Ousley. 
Seeds sent by him were distributed to different parts of the 
country by the Society. Mr. Finch, of Tirhoot, after two years, 
returned five maunds ; and stated that three fourths of his crop 
were destroyed by caterpillars, while the common Linseed grown 
in the vicinity of the white, was left untouched by them. 
The useful products of the Flax plant consist of the seeds 
and of the fibre or Flax. Linseed, or the seeds of the Flax 
plant, are oval, pointed in shape, compressed with a sharp mar- 
gin; brownish coloured, smooth, and shining on the outside, 
but white internally, and without odour. The outside has a 
bland, mucilaginous taste, in consequence of the skin of the 
seed being covered with condensed mucus. The white part, 
or almond of the seed, has an oily taste, from containing fixed 
oil, which is separated by expression. 
These seeds, analysed by Meyer, consist, in one hundred 
parts, of 15:12 mucilage (nitrogenous mucilage with acetic 
acid and salts, according to some), chiefly in the seed-coat, 
11°26 fatty oil in the nucleus. In the husk, emulsin 44°38, 
besides wax 0°14, acrid soft resin 2:48, starch with salts 1:48. 
In the nucleus, besides the oil, gum 6:15, albumen 2°78, gluten 
2°93, also resinous colouring matter 0:55, yellow extractive 
with tannin and salts (nitre and the chlorides of potassium and 
calcium) 1-91, sweet extractive with malic acid and some salts 
10°88. 
The condensed mucus which abounds in the testa of the 
seed is readily acted on by hot water, and a viscid mucilaginous 
fluid is formed, in which are two distinct substances ; one com- 
pletely soluble in water, analogous to common gum, called 
