VALUE OF FLAX. 



269 



her laws to retard it." This able writer further observes, 

 "Food is wealth. Population is wealth. Since the manna fell 

 from Heaven in the Wilderness^ food has been the produce of 

 man's labour. It invariably follows cultivation, and in suffi- 

 cient abundance for the wants of men. Some parties then 

 must be encouraged to cultivate the earth ; and surely it is 

 obvious policy to pay home-cultivators rather than foreign." 



Mr. Burn's arguments in favour of providing food from our 

 own resources, are enforced with a solidity of reasoning rarely 

 to be met with. I refer to them because they are equally ap- 

 plicable to the production of clothing through native rather 

 than foreign cultivators. Men," he adds, " are not surely 

 condemned to one species of labour that will not maintain a 

 feverish existence, to the exclusion of another that ensures 

 plenty. It is the business of the rich to find out new sources 

 of employment fo3- men at all times willing, and now more than 

 ever anxious, to provide food for themselves and families." 



In my former writings I have shown, from Parliamentary 

 Returns, and from other documents, that five or six millions 

 are annually sent out of this country for the purchase of flax, 

 to the encouragement of foreign farmers, and to the employ- 

 ment of foreign labourers. 



I have shown that flax is a highly prolific crop, and, under 

 the new system of management, improves the soil; that it 

 affords more varied and permanent occupation than any other 

 production of the earth ; and that the most ordinary land in 

 the kingdom is capable of producing it. 



I have shown that the appropriation of one acre to every 

 hundred now in cultivation, to the growth of this important 

 plant, would employ the redundant rural and manufacturing 

 population of this country ; and produce in one year more than 

 double the weight of seed to fatten cattle, that was ever im- 

 ported of oil-cake in the same period, 



1 have also shown that the genius of the people is suited to 

 the management of flax ; and the wealthy spinners of England, 

 of Scotland, and of Ireland, are anxious to purchase our crops ; 

 and, as a further confirmation, I refer to the first annual re- 



