TO THE SECOND EDITION. 



9 



The friends of the flax-cause will hail the above letter 

 as a powerful auxiliary to my labours ; because it already 

 establishes the two points that I have long endeavoured 

 to enforce ; viz., that flax is a remunerative, and not an 

 exhausting crop. It will now be difficult to find any other 

 impediment to the growth of the plant than the fear 

 of trouble. But under well-regulated associations, this 

 dreaded inconvenience might be materially lightened. 



The profits of the first year would prove a stimulus for 

 the second ; and in the third, flax would stand foremost 

 in the farmer's estimation. Such was my experience for 

 the first three or four years, commencing with one acre. 

 Now I am preparing twenty acres for my seventh crop, 

 being about a sixth part of my farm ; a proof that I am 

 actuated by something more solid than the charm of 

 novelty. And were I the occupier of a thousand acres 

 situated in a populous district, it would be both my in- 

 terest and duty to appropriate a quantity of land to flax, 

 proportionate to the redundancy of hands ; — interest, 

 because those hands would produce greater acreable 

 profits than flocks of sheep \ duty, because of the Divine 

 injunction to aflford every man the means of living by the 

 sweat of his brow. 



Why then should we not be as solicitous to introduce 

 new sources of employment for our people, as fresh 

 varieties of provender for our cattle, seeing that the 

 greatest gains are obtained from the labouring poor ? Let 

 us then unite our minds and our means, and set them to 

 work on flax. Soon should we discover that one flock of 

 human beings is more profitable than many herds of 

 cattle : and that the redundant population would cease to 

 exist except in the page of history. The reader who may 



