brake the straw must be dry. Frosty weather is well adapted to 

 the work as it can be done in the shelter of the barn. Sometimes 

 tires are built and the straw piled around it, but I would be very 

 shy to recommend fires and flax straw being brought in close 

 proximity. Braking is performed by pounding and pressing small 

 nandfuls of straw between the moveable arms of the brake until 

 the woody part or chive is broken into short pieces, rendering 

 them more easily removed, by the subsequent process of scutch- 

 mg. In the process of scutching the fiber is separated from the 

 tow and much tow is carried over the scutching blades, by in- 

 competent operators. As it is difficult for one to learn from mere 



Domestic Scutching Board 



written instruction, it will be well for parties contemplating flax 

 culture to consult some of their European neighbors, who came 

 from flax growing regions, Irish, French, Belgian, German, Dutch, 

 Russian, Scandinavian, Austrian, etc., and while each nationality 

 may vary in their views, do not put two men of different national- 

 ities to discuss flax together, unless you wish to have a lively cat 

 and dog fight on your hands. 



In this place I cannot do better than give an epitomized ac- 

 count of Mr. Frank Barbour's report, on one ton of Puget Sound 

 fiber flax straw, sent to his mill in Ireland for investigation. 



MR. FRANK BARBOUR'S REPaRT (EPITOMIZED) 

 In 1895, Mr. Frank Barbour, general manager of the Barbour 

 Bros. Co., of Lisborn, Ireland, and of world wide reputation, vis- 

 ited Seattle on Puget Sound, where I had placed at the Chamber 

 of Commerce samples of fine long fiber flax, grown by me in 

 Whatcom County, State of Washington, which surprised and in- 

 terested him so much, that he wrote to me, that if I would send 

 him one ton of my Puget Sound flax straw to his establishment 

 at Lisborn, Ireland, he would work it up, from the field to the 

 finish, free of cost to me, an offer I gladly accepted, only request- 

 ing him to furnish full report and samples of the result. 



57 



