RESTORATIVE, NOT AN EXHAUSTING CROP. 



97 



again draw so largely on your valuable space, at any one time 

 on the subject. 



t6 As there are many tales told calculated to prejudice land- 

 owners as well as farmers, and prevent experiments in Flax- 

 culture being made, I wish now to call attention to observations 

 and experiments, in order to disabuse (if possible) the minds of 

 those farmers who labour under the delusion (handed down to 

 them by their grandfathers) that Flax not only exhausts the 

 soil, but is ruinous to the producer, and as I think the evidence 

 I now bring forward will be sufficient to satisfy the farmers, 

 and prove the absurdity of such threadbare tales, I must 

 address myself to those landlords who prohibit (by the terms 

 of the leases granted) the cultivation of Flax. Surely they 

 are more open to conviction than to continue to believe mere 

 assertions in preference to facts proved by experiments, 

 and corroborated by the learned and professional men 

 whose lectures on agricultural subjects have earned for them 

 the thanhs of so many noblemen and farmer's clubs in the 

 three kingdoms. I cannot believe that there is a landowner 

 in England so contracted in his ideas as to take advantage of 

 such restrictions being (through downright ignorance of the 

 nature and value of the plant) in leases against its cultiva- 

 tion. If they consider it a more scourging crop than wheat 

 (and that I deny it to be), have we not skilful chemists able to 

 direct us to restore to the soil, by the many now available 

 manures, those ingredients of which Flax may be found to 

 have robbed it ? And would not the oil-cake, or what is 

 better, the crushed seed, not only be highly beneficial in the 

 feeding of animals, but is it not acknowledged BY ALL that 

 there is nothing equal to it as an enriclier of the farm-yard 

 manure ? With these facts before the eyes of the opponents 

 of Flax, I shall proceed to call their "attention to further 

 evidence on the subject. 



" As I cannot expect farmers to give the subject, of which I 

 G 



