218 BREAKING AND SCUTCHING OF FLAX. 
dressed Flax of commerce, worth 6d. to 8d. per 1b., or 6 to 8 
annas per seer. 
“ Another simple mode of breaking is by taking a handful of 
stalks in one hand, laying them upon a table or block, beating 
them with a wooden mallet or bat; afterwards drawing them 
forcibly over’ the edge of the table with both hands, and 
scutching, in order to free them from the fragments and 
stalks. 
«Another method. The Bott- 
hammer is a wooden block (some- 
thing of the size and shape of a 
denkee), having on its under face, 
channels or flutings, five or six 
deep lines, and it is fixed to a 
long bent helve or handle. In 
=: using it, a bundle of the dried Flax 
stalks is spread evenly upon the 
floor, then powerfully beaten with the hammer, first at the 
roots, next at the points, and lastly in the middle. When the 
upper surface has been well beat in this way, it is turned over, 
that the under surface may get its turn. The Flax is then 
removed, and well shaken to free it from the boon. 
“By the hammer the whole wood is never separated from the 
textile fibres, but a certain quantity of chaffy stuff adheres to 
them, which is removed by another operation. This consists 
either in rubbing or shaking. The rubbing is much practised 
in Westphalia, and the neighbouring districts.’ 
The common brake consists of four wooden swords fixed in 
a frame, and another frame with three swords, which play in the 
interstices of the first, by means of a joint at one end. The 
Flax is taken in the left hand, and placed between the two 
frames, and the upper frame is pushed down briskly upon it. 
It breaks the Flax in four places, and by moving the left hand, 
and rapidly repeating the strokes with the right, the whole 
handful is soon broken. An improved form of brake is worked 
by a treadle, and motion given it with the left foot. 
“ Scutching-block which may be used with either of the methods 
of breaking.—Fig. 4 represents a board set upright in a block 
of wood so as to stand steady, in which is a horizontal slit 
about three feet from the ground, the edge of which is thin. 
