188 



FlaXy its Treatment, 



properties pervade the whole order, but have not been remarked in 

 the cultivated flax. Several of its members are plentifully met 

 with in this country as weeds : the Linum Catharticum is very 

 common on poor lands ; the L. perenne (or Siberian flax), usually 

 on chalk formations ; the L. usitatissimum on cultivated soils ; 

 and more rarely the L. angustifolium, which is met with on 

 sandy and barren pastures, principally near the sea ; while the 

 Radiola isVell known to all botanists as being met with in moist 

 and boggy places. 



Although there are many kinds of flax known to botanists as 

 possessing fibres suitable for textile purposes, the L. usitatis- 

 simum appears to be the only one which has been employed in 

 cultivation. Of this Dr. Lindley tells us there are two very 

 different forms,* namely, — 1. The L. humile or crepitans (the 

 Springlein or Klanglein of the Germans), a plant somewhat 

 shorter and more inclined to branch than the other, and possess- 

 ing larger capsules, twice as long as the calyx, which burst with 

 considerable elasticity when ripe ; its seeds, too, are both larger 

 and of a paler colour. 2. The L. usitatissimum, or true winter 

 flax (Winterlein of the Germans), which has smaller capsules, 

 scarcely longer than the calyx, not bursting with elasticity, but 

 firmly retaining their seeds, which are of a dark brown colour. 

 These distinctions do not seem to be very well understood in 

 this country, though they certainly are of some practical im- 

 portance. 



In the market we frequently meet with this full-bodied light- 

 coloured seed, and it is generally considered to be the produce 

 of flax harvested before the straw was quite ripe ; whereas it is 

 the mature produce of a different variety, suitable for spring 

 sowing, and probably having a more rapid growth than the 

 L. usitatissimum or winter flax. In the foreign department of 

 the Exhibition in 1851 samples of both were seen in several 

 places. In Austria and North Europe, where the winters are 

 severe and the snow lies too long on the ground to admit of early 

 tillage in the spring, the Winterlein is extensively used and 

 sown in the autumn ; the summer season being too short and too 

 hot to admit of the successful cultivation of the Springlein. 

 With us the custom is to sow in the spring, though no doubt in 

 some of our northern districts, where the ground cannot be got 

 ready sufficiently early in the spring, flax could be advantageously 

 cultivated if sown in the previous autumn. 



The important services which flax has rendered to man has 

 secured for it a record from the earliest times. In the Bible we 

 find frequent mention made of it both as flax and in its manu- 



* Encj'clop. of Agric. — Blackie and Co. 



