On the Cultivation of Flax. 



383 



fixed at the extremity of the machine; or a spring-pole (d) will 

 answer the same purpose and give more power. The operator 

 introduces the top-ends of the flax, and gradually slips it through, 

 bringing down the upper row of grooves quickly upon it until it 

 is sufficiently bruised, when a person at the opposite side of the 

 machine takes the handful out. A hard wooden mallet (inarteau) 

 and a flat stone or block of hard wood are used to bruise the flax 

 in many parts of Belgium; but this is a more tedious mode than 

 the other. After being thus bruised, the woody part of the stem 

 will part freely from the fibre in the operation of scutching, 

 leaving it in reeds. This is effected with a broad flat blade of 

 wood, about a third of an inch thick {fig- 4) and generally made 

 of bay-wood, black birch, or sycamore. The operator holds this 



in the right hand, and with the left introduces a handful of the 

 bruised flax -stems into the groove B of the stand a {fig. 5) ; and 

 by repeated blows of the scutch-blade, turning the flax frequently 

 to present fresh surfaces, and regulating the power of the stroke 

 to the nature of the flax, strikes away the bruised bits of woody 

 matter; a buff-leather belt is stretched between the stand and 

 an upright stake (c), which is inserted in the flat bottom ; and 

 after the blade strikes the flax it falls on and rebounds from the 

 leather, which saves much fatigue to the worker. Any remaining bits 



of shove are scraped away with a broad blunt 



knife {fig. 6), the flax being laid across the ^'^^ 

 worker's leg, which is covered with a piece ^' 

 of leather, and scraped in that position. An expert scutcher 

 can turn out from 8 lbs. to 14 lbs. of clean flax in the day, but 

 the quantity will depend on the quality : as, of hard, coarse, 

 badly-watered flax, not more than one-half or one third this quan- 

 tity could be done in the same time. 



