of strong joint stock companies with ample capital, to make cash 

 conliacts with the farmers to grow under special instructions, 

 furnishing the seed at cost price and "Spot cash" (or stock 

 "li^u option), on delivery at the mill. The company conducting 

 all the technical work of pulling, thrashing, retting, and scutch- 

 ing, with skilled operators, and improved, and the best labor- 

 savmg appliances. It will always be the best policy of such 

 companies to give the grower the best possible price justified by 

 the quality of the flax, and the care bestowed on it, by the grower 

 in order to encourage him to continue the culture, enabling the 

 mill to work all the year to its full capacity, and also encourage 

 him to turn his earnings into capital stock and increase his per- 

 sonal interest in the success of the company, in fact any other 

 policy would only be an aggravated case of "killing the goose 

 that laid the golden eggs." To provide good retting the all ira 

 portant conditions is good suitable water. Where this condition 

 does not exist it must be provided artificially or the system of 

 water retting of flax be abandoned for the far inferior system of 

 dew retting. To illustrate, I will quote an interesting case. A Mr. 

 Luppens, a Belgian flax expert, invented a system of tank ret- 

 ting of flax which was very successful when operated with the 

 river Lys water which was acknowledged by experts at that time, 

 (25 years ago), to be of unsurpassable quality for retting flax. Mr. 

 Frank Barbour at that time was operating on some Puget Sound 

 Flax I had sent him when he called my attention to Mr. Lup- 

 pen's invention and kindly forwarded me some very beautiful 

 samples of Mr. Luppen's products with the following remarks: 



"I send you some of Mr. Luppen's tank retted flax from Cour- 

 trai. I am afraid he has sent you too fine a quality, but I have 

 myself seen some of his samples that were the finest I have ever 

 seen." 



Since the war in Europe, and the phenominal advances in the 

 market price of all grades of flax, some capitalists in Minnesota 

 sent to Mr. Luppens to induce him to visit Minnesota to erect a 

 battery of retting tanks, and after heavy expenditure of capital 

 and a great flourish of trumpets the result was an utter failure. 

 The water had too much lime in it, which would have been dis- 

 covered at first if he had only washed his hands with some soap 

 in it! 



Pool Retting and Stacking Straw. 



Shallow soft water ponds or lakes furnish suitable conditions. 

 Cheap dams in low places or the plow and scraper may be used 

 to advantage, but the water must be soft, and without lime, must 

 be secured in the first instance. A pond 50x94 feet will hold the 

 product of one acre of flax. It is well not to make the pools deep- 

 er than four feet; the water attains a higher temperature than if 



The pools should be prepared in the winter, and a few small 

 pools will be more easily managed than a larger body of water. 

 An open position exposed to the sun, will be better than one heav- 

 ily shaded with timber. Here we come to the disputed point in 



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