176 DIRECTIONS FOR FLAX CULTURE IN INDIA. 
bound in small sheaves, in the same way as the Sunn. The Indians under- 
stand this business very well, but in taking the flax out of the water it 
should be handled softly and with great care, on account of the tenderness 
of its fibres. When it is newly taken out, it should be left on the side of 
the steeping pit for four hours, or until the draining of its water has ceased. 
It is then spread out with the root-ends even, turned once, and when dry it 
is fit for dressing or to be stapled. 
5. To save the seed, the capsules, after they are separated from the stalks, 
should be putin heaps to ferment from twenty-four to thirty hours, and 
then dried slowly in the sun to acquire their ripeness. ‘ 
6. When Flax is cultivated for the seed alone, the country Flax should 
be preferred. Six seers per bega are sufficient for the sowing. It should be 
sown very early in October, and taken up a little before perfect ripeness, by 
its roots, separately, when it is mixed with mustard seed; the Flax seed 
being “intended for the purpose of drying oil, is greatly injured by being 
mixed with mustard seed, by which mixture its drying qualities are much 
deteriorated. With regard to the dressing of the raw material, most of the 
coolies are now acquainted with the process, and I have not theretore 
alluded to it. Should you desire any further information on the subject, 
I am ready to afford it.” 
Mr. Deneef, in reply to some queries circulated by the Asgri.- 
Horticultural Society, observed that too dry or saline soils were injurious 
to the culture, but that his own had been a heavy clay soil; also, that the 
Bengal begah contained 14,400 square feet, or one third of an acre, and that 
he sowed of foreign seed, 28 lb.; of American, 36 lb.; but of plump Patna, 
or native seed, not less than 40 1b, on account of its larger size. That the 
foreign seed cost Rs.8 a maund of 82 1b., while the native then cost Rs.2 8. 
The acclimated American seed he found to succeed well in India. But 
on a previous occasion (Feb. 10, 1841), he had observed of some samples 
grown at Entally, from acclimated English seed, from country seed, and 
some from Saharunpore seed, (from 30° of N. lat.,) that the sample from this 
last was very superior to the others. Of two samples from acclimated 
American seed, one grown in rather poor ground, the other in a rich soil— 
“ The former,” he observed, “is a most beautiful sample, containing great 
length of stalk with thinness; the other is of very little value, the goodness 
of the soil having caused the plant to become stunted and branchy.” 
Mr. Deneef further observed, that he obtained the longest and finest fibres 
in sowing from the 25th of October to the 15th of November: this he ascribes 
to the plant being covered every morning with a heavy dew; while that 
which he had sown in the beginning of October, in the same soil and the same 
seed, was much shorter in stalks, but much more productive in seed,— 
“the rain being very scarce from the first days of October until the end 
of December, in this part of India.” (But the ground is still hot, and the 
temperature high at this period.) The begah will yield 1001b. of seed from 
foreign seed, and about 12 per cent. more from native seed. 
He concludes with an approximate account of the cost (amounting to £32) 
of raising a ton of Flax from Foreign seed, well dressed, and which would be 
worth £50 in the English market; stating that 801b. of Flax for a begah of 
land is a very small product. ‘When we shall be able to have the seed 
from our own product, Rs. 60 on that article will be saved.” The account 
is as follows: 
