SOWING. 



115 



but in every other country where it is raised, its fibres are 

 woven into cloth. 



The common flax (linum usitatissimuni) is an annual plant, 

 which shoots forth in slender upright fibrous stalks about the 

 thickness of a crow-quill. — These stalks are hollow pipes, 

 surrounded by a fibrous bark or rind, the filaments of which, 

 divested of all extraneous matter and carefully prepared, are 

 the material of cambric, linen, and other similar manufactures. 

 The leaves, placed alternately on the stem, are long, narrow, 

 and of a greyish colour. When the plant has attained the 

 height of about two and a half or three feet, the stem then 

 divides itself into slender foot-stalks, which are terminated by 

 small blue indented flowers ; these produce large globular seed- 

 vessels, divided within into ten cells, each containing a bright 

 slippery elongated seed. 



Although flax is easy of growth, its quality depends very 

 • much on fitness of soil and situation. Low grounds, and those 

 which have received deposits left by the occasional overflowing 

 of rivers, or where water is found not very far from the sur- 

 face, are deemed the most favourable situations for its culture. 

 It is attributed to this last circumstance that Zealand produces 

 the finest flax grown in Holland. Preparatory to the culti- 

 vation of this plant, it is not necessary that the ground should 

 be very deeply furrowed by the plough, but it should be re- 

 duced to a fine friable mould by the repeated use of the har- 

 row. Two or three bushels of seed are required for each acre 

 of ground, if scattered broadcast. Care is taken to distribute 

 the seed evenly, and the ^arth is then raked or lightly harrowed 

 over. When flax is raised to be manufactured into cambric 

 and fine lawns, double the quantity of seed is sown in the 

 same space of ground — the plants growing nearer to each other 

 having a greater tendency to shoot up in long slender stalks ; 

 and, as the same number of fibres are usually found in each 

 plant, these will be of course finer in proportion. 



When the crop grows short and branchy, it is esteemed more 

 valuable for seed than for its fibrous bark, and then it is 

 not gathered until the seeds are at full maturity. But if the 

 stalks grow straight and long, then all care of the seed becomes 

 a secondary consideration, and the flax is pulled at the most 



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