On the Cultivation of Flax. 



375 



2nd. It may be dried in stocks of a peculiar construction, the 

 seed beaten off, and the stems steeped shortly afterwards. 



3rd. It may be dried as above, stored past, the seed beaten off 

 during the winter, and the flax steeped in the following summer. 



The first plan is that most generally practised where flax is 

 grown in the British islands, in Holland, and most parts of Bel- 

 gium. After the flax has been pulled, as before described, it is 

 rippled. Rippling is the term used to de- 

 note the separation of the seed-bolls from fifiWlWlfi'll^ilM^^^^ 

 the stems by drawing them briskly through a iil}! I| i^^l^ 

 machine {fig. 1), composed of a row of iron !■ > 'illJflililT'r 

 teeth, about 18 inches lono-, half an inch ' ' ' 



square, a quarter of an inch apart from each 

 other at the bottom, and tapering slightly so 

 as to be half an inch asunder at the tops, 

 which are sharpened. These teeth are 

 screwed into a flat piece of wood,* which can be bolted down 

 to a bench or plank set on upright supports about 8 or 9 feet 

 long, on which the operators sit astride, facing each other. A 

 winnowing-sheet is spread underneath to receive the bolls ; the 

 flax, as pulled, is laid in handfuls, crossing each other diagonally, 

 at the right hand of each rippler. He takes up a handful, and, 

 grasping it with one hand, with the other he spreads out the top, 

 so as to present a broad fan-like surface to the ripple. If the 

 seed-bolls are numerous, as in branchy flax, the points, merely, 

 of the stalks should be first drawn through the ripple, and then 

 the remaining part bearing bolls. Where the stems, as is 

 generally the case with fine flax, bear only one or two bolls each, 

 once drawing through will suffice to take them off. Indeed, it is 

 better, in all cases, to lose a small proportion of bolls by allowing 

 them to remain on the stems, than by drawing them too fre- 

 quently through to risk the tearing or fraying of the fibre in its 

 soft state. Careless ripplers neglect spreading the points suffi- 

 ciently; and the force of the pull, which should always be 

 smartly done, drags out whole stalks, breaking others, and doing 

 much injury ; hence has arisen a prejudice against this operation 

 in many parts of Ireland, where the value of the seed is not 

 sufficiently understood. The ripplers strike the flax through 

 alternately ; and, when well practised, four men, with two 

 rippling-combs, will take the seed off rather more than an acre 

 in the day. Flax is much easier to handle after rippling, as the 

 interlocking of the bolls makes it very difficult to separate the 

 handfuls and keep the flax even. The ripplers lay down each 



* Some persons prefer having these pins screwed into a east metal 

 frame, as they do not then twist or warp. 



2 c 2 



