Past and Present State of Agriculture in Ireland. 
451 
wholesale market could be obtained by the importer ; but as soon 
as the spinning-mills at Dundee and Leeds were established, an 
entire revolution in the trade took place — the hand-spinner was 
undersold and driven out of the market ; and the wholesale de- 
mand of the mills giving encouragement to importers, the supply 
was obtained from Russia at pretty much the same cost of transport 
as from the north of Ireland country markets, at a cheaper rate 
and of a more even quality. The Irish grower, therefore, being 
unable to cope with the Russian importations to the east coast of 
England, and having lost the home market by the ruin of the 
hand-spinner, was obliged to give up the crop and turn his land 
to something else : but upon the establishment of flax-spinning 
mills in Belfast the Irish farmer had less way to go to market 
with the article, and his foreign competitor had a farther distance 
to come, from which he (the Irish grower) derived a certain ad- 
vantage ; and the crop has again been cultivated to a great extent : 
still, however, the low price at which Russian flax can be imported 
makes the crop but little remunerative, except where fine quali- 
ties are produced, in the growth of which our only competitors 
are the natives of Holland and Belgium. From the laudable 
desire to teach the Irish farmer to improve the quantity and fine- 
ness of his crop, the Flax Improvement Society originated, and 
certainly has done service in turning the attention of the farmers 
to a more careful management of the article ; but it cannot be 
said to have almost in any degree established the Flemish prac- 
tice : nothing will overcome the general opinion of his own skill 
which the Irish farmer entertains, but the undeniable fact brought 
before his eyes of a Belgian buying one-half his field of flax and 
treating it in the Flemish way, leaving himi the other half to be 
treated according to his own, and then taking the two parcels 
into the same market; when, if the Flemish method produces a 
superior price after paying for all expenses, the question is de- 
cided ; and without this proof, however the Irish farmer may be 
induced to pay a little more attention in some things, yet the 
adoption of the Flemish system will be slowly, if ever, established. 
Although this plan has not been directly followed by the Flax 
Improvement Society, it has been reported that through the en- 
couragement it has afforded, a dealer in flax has come over from 
Belgium with sufficient capital to be employed in purchasing the 
growing crops of flax in this country for the purpose of making a 
profit by the superior quality and fineness the article will acquire 
under his mode of treatment ; this would at once put to the proof 
whether the flax in Ireland can be brought to rival the growth of 
Holland and Belgium : if so, the farmers will not be slow to adopt 
the new method ; and an advantage will be conferred on the king- 
