Xll 



PREFACE. 



they have failed to solve. Nor can it be solved, except 

 through the national adoption of the flax crop ; because 

 the redundant population would obtain the employment, 

 agriculture the support, and trade the encouragement 

 which each so greatly needs ; because the formation of 

 linseed into food to fatten cattle, and the sale of flax, 

 will be fresh sources of wealth to the British farmer; 

 and because an impetus would be given to home trade 

 in general by the increased price of wages, and by the - 

 consequent increased consumption of all the common 

 necessaries of life. 



In truth, it is impossible to form an estimate of the 

 advantages the community would derive ; for, inde- 

 pendent of all pecuniary consideration, moral, civil, and 

 religious order are involved in the magnitude of the 

 undertaking. 



The redundant juvenile population, in particular, has 

 long been the bane of society: an irremediable evil, 

 except through permanent employment; an evil, the 

 removal of which has for years excited general solici- 

 tude. But, except the cultivation of flax, nothing 

 effective has yet been devised. Effective, because, if the 

 poor-rates at Trimingham have been reduced to one rate 

 in three-quarters of a year, at threepence in the pound, 

 through the employment afforded by flax-culture, it is but 

 reasonable to assume that the same effect would be pro- 

 'duced in every parish throughout the kingdom.* 



Less than one acre of land to a hundred, now in culti- 

 vation, would produce more flax than the redundant 

 population could prepare for market ; be the means of 

 circulating annually, chiefly in wages, three millions 



* See p. 61. 



