PREFACE. 



vii 



strictly adhered to. Circumstances may have interfered 

 to prevent the full realization of promised benefits. But 

 the great majority of successful instances indisputably 

 prove that all the others might have been equally so if 

 conducted upon the same principles. 



Now that my publications appear in a collected form, 

 many errors for the future may be avoided. But how- 

 ever simple every process, and clear every description, 

 it is scarcely possible, particularly in the management 

 of flax, for amateurs to succeed without the aid of prac- 

 tical instruction. 



I have endeavoured to show that county associations, 

 with branches attached, were eminently calculated to 

 disseminate information. I therefore insert the adver- 

 tisements, circulars, and reports of those already formed, 

 for the guidance of parties who may hereafter perceive 

 the desirableness of establishing similar societies. Their 

 insertion may be thought by some irrelevant and con- 

 fusing ; as also the controversial portions of my letters, 

 political allusions, &c. ; but had I omitted them, the 

 nationality of my undertaking and the independence of 

 my exertions would have been destroyed. 



My volume is offered as a book of reference, rather 

 than as a connected history. Information will be found 

 indiscriminately distributed. But the Index will remedy 

 any inconvenience on this account, by at once referring 

 the inquirer to the subject of his immediate research. 



Although the flax-plant was indigenous to this coun- 

 try, and its properties, both as respects fibre and seed, 

 were known from time immemorial, yet its real value 

 remained undiscovered till the invention of the com- 

 pound. Every attempt to fatten cattle upon linseed 



