VALUE OF MR. GOWER's OPINION. 



225 



of Mr. Gower, in particular, respecting the cultivation of 

 Flax. 



I return my cordial thanks to the president, Capt. Heigham, 

 and to the members assembled, for their kind opinion of my 

 services to those two great classes of the community, British 

 farmers and British labourers, through Avhich all our wants are 

 supplied, and to support which I shall not cease to toil, though 

 clogged on the one hand by a selfish and idle prejudice, and on 

 the other by a misanthropic opposition. 



I regret my absence from the meeting, because I could have 

 afforded that information which Mr. Gower so studiously with- 

 held, and which, as Hon. Sec. to the National Flax and Agri- 

 cultural Improvement Association, I am constrained to supply. 

 Otherwise I should consider it unnecessary to animadvert upon 

 his incongruous statements, because they clearly prove, if 

 further proof were needed, the soundness of my advice to grow 

 flax for the sake of the seed as well as for the fibre. 



Mr. Gower observed, " I am satisfied that if a man tried to 

 grow both at one time, he would fail in both." But shortly 

 afterwards he informed the company, that ''his land last year 

 produced seed and forty stone of flax per acre." Now as the 

 price for which an article is sold is no criterion of profit, so 

 five shillings per stone, the price offered for Mr. Gower 's flax, 

 is no criterion of the acreable profit of his crop ; which profit 

 was, in fact, the real object of inquiry, and should therefore 

 have been laid before the meeting. In Mr. Gower's former 

 public, as well as private communications, he declared that he 

 " had no doubt of flax being a paying crop, — that he grew four 

 acres, part for the seed and part for the fibre, — that he had 

 five coombs of seed per acre oflP the whole, and that he was bid 

 361 for the fibre after he had taken the seed." But as the seed 

 from each crop was not threshed separately, it is impossible to 

 ascertain how much the portion of land appropriated to the 

 growth of the seed, produced above that for the fibre. From 

 many returns before me, varying from 14 even to 32 bushels 

 per acre, I calculate about 6 bushels. This would give 26 

 bushels per acre, which at Mr. Gower's own and low estimate 

 of the value of the seed, at 6^, 3d per bushel, would amount 



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