290 



THE author's reply TO 



But, as the English Cincinnatus requires profit in the fore- 

 ground, I can happily offer a prospect that will gladden the 

 eyes of the keenest calculator. He will perceive that flax is 

 now a double crop, affording fibre and seed — that if both are 

 sold, the acreable profit exceeds that of corn. But when cattle 

 are fattened upon the seed, it is impossible to form an estimate 

 of the returns for meat, or for corn raised by the manure. 



Cincinnatus " observes, I was born a Farmer, and have 

 followed agricultural pursuits for a long life " — meaning, 1 

 suppose, that he ought, in consequence, to be considered an 

 authority. I, also, have passed some years in agricultural 

 pursuits ; and know many who call themselves Farmers, and 

 yet are cumberers, not tillers, of the ground. My father," he 

 remarks, was a grower of hemp and flax, and prepared it for 

 the buckler ; but as I was a mere boy when he discontinued 

 the practice, I know not why he abandoned it — but I recollect 

 that it required our best land to produce it — that it exhausted 

 the land very much, and encouraged the growth of rubbish." 

 It IS singular that " Cincinnatus " should not have been ac- 

 quainted with the true cause of abandonment, and yet have so 

 vivid a recollection that flax required their best land — that 

 it very much exhausted the soil, and encouraged the growth of 

 rubbish." Such a list of woes would in themselves have 

 formed a sufliicient reason for the discontinuing of the culture 

 of flax. But we know that it was mainly occasioned by the 

 want of hands consequent upon war. At that time the rural 

 population was barely equal to the task of gathering in the 

 crops of grain ; much less to that of securing flax, which re- 

 quired according to the system then practised, so much and such 

 varied attention. What might have been inexpedient then, 

 becomes an imperative duty now, seeing that our population is 

 ' doubled, for a vast proportion of which adequate employment 

 cannot be found. In those da3^s flax was pulled, steeped, and 

 prepared during harvest ; now, it is stacked like corn, and the 

 after-processes performed at pleasure. Under the old system the 

 seed was cast into the steeping-holes with the stalks, and de- 

 stroyed ; but now, it forms the most important part of the crop, 

 returning, with the chaff and broken stalks, tenfold to the 

 soil. 



