FLAX 



FLAX 



299 



plot of soil known to be "flax-sick." The majority 

 of the plants succumbed to the disease. The very 

 few that survived were carefully harvested and 

 stored. The seeds from these were in turn planted 

 on "flax-sick" soil. Year by year the proportion 

 of plants surviving the attacks of the disease grew 

 larger until, in 1904, a comparatively immune or 

 wilt-resisting variety was secured. This experi- 

 ment, though simple and dealing only with one 

 of our economic crops, has an immense economic 

 value. It opens the road to success in breeding 

 disease-resistant varieties of all our field crops, 

 garden crops and flowers. 



Harvesting. 



The ideal way to harvest flax for the best quality 

 of fiber is to pull it by hand, thus securing the full 

 length. In Europe, where labor is cheap and the 

 acreage per farmer small, the flax is nearly always 

 pulled and stood up in bunches (stocks) to dry, but 

 the high price of labor and the relative efficiency 

 of harvesting machinery makes the pulling of flax 

 almost prohibitive in America, and it is practiced 

 only to a very limited extent. 



When flax is grown exclusively for the seed, it is 

 cut with the self-rake reaper or the binder. Occa- 

 sionally, in the absence of a better machine, the 

 mower is used. Its use, however, is not at all satis- 

 factory, as it leaves the crop in condition diiScult 

 to handle without considerable loss. When cut 

 with the binder, the farmers seldom use twine, and 

 the gavels are thrown from the machine and lay 

 as if cut with a reaper. If twine is used, the bundles 

 are gathered into small, loose shocks that permit of 

 rapid drying. If cut with the reaper, the gavels are 

 left in position as they fall until well dried on the 

 upper side. They are then turned with an old-style 

 barley fork so as to expose the other side to the 

 sun. When dry, the crop is either stacked or 



Fig. 408. K^urseiy planting machine used in breeding 

 experiments. 



threshed. Often, in the absence of the threshing 

 outfit, the crop remains in the field until the outfit 

 arrives. For this reason, there is considerable loss 

 caused by rains. The flax grown on the low ground 

 is generally low grade if not carefully guarded, 



through molding and successive wetting and dry- 

 ing. A fiax field at harvest-maturity is shown in 

 Fig. 409. 



A few trials have been made to determine the 

 possibilities of heading the standing flax, then 

 cutting and binding the straw, thus possibly de- 

 creasing the cost of preparing the straw for man- 



Fig. 409. Field of flax ready for harvest. 



ufacturing purposes. Nothing has as yet proved 

 to be practicable. Ideas of special machines for 

 pulling and preparing the flax have been conceived, 

 but thus far efforts have failed. 



Obstructions to growth. 



Weeds. — One of the greatest drawbacks to the 

 production of flax is the ever-present weed incur- 

 sion, which sooner or later must be met by every 

 farmer. On old land, especially, is it impossible 

 successfully to grow flax for seed with present 

 methods of culture. On the newer lands weeds are 

 no serious menace to the crop, although they are 

 generally present in limited numbers. The nature 

 of the flax plant gives ample opportunity, with 

 thin sowings for seed purposes, for weeds to de- 

 velop. When five or six pecks are seeded per acre, 

 weeds are crowded out if the ground is well pre- 

 pared before sowing, thus giving the plants a good 

 start before the weeds get started. A good sys- 

 tem of crop rotation with flax following a grass- 

 lay or a corn crop for which manure has been 

 applied, will quite eliminate this trouble. 



The weeds commonly found in flax-fields of the 

 Northwest are as follows: Foxtail {Chmtochloa 

 viridis), lamb's-quarter (Chenopodium album), pig- 

 weed {Amaranthus retroflexus), pepper-grass (Lepid- 

 ium Virginicum), wild mustard (Brassiea arvensis) 

 and other of the mustard family, French weed 

 {Thlaspi arvense), smart weed (Polygonum Persi- 

 caria). Many other weeds occasionally find their 

 way into the flax-field, but do not attract attention 

 as do those named. None of the weed seeds are ex- 

 ceptionally difficult to separate from flax seed, but 

 when present they increase the cost of manufactur- 

 ing and decrease the market price, and cause a 

 dockage to be levied, not to mention the cost of 

 freight on them. In the flax-straw, weeds greatly 

 decrease the value- of the fiber. The weed-stalks 

 are hard to break. When broken, the pieces catch 

 in the fibers and cause tangling and breaking. 



