Flax for Paper-making. 
455 
swallowed with the snail containing them, principally on the 
ground that when flukes are found in an animal, they are 
usually very numerous. But a stroll round the Oxford meat- 
market is quite enough to convince one that sheep often contain 
a very limited number of flukes. The bile-ducts of the liver 
are then opened, the flukes removed, and the livers sold for 
food. Moreover, I have often had livers sent me which con- 
tained a very small number of flukes, on one occasion only a 
single fluke, on another occasion seven. 
XXIV. — Flax for Paper-making. By RiCHARD Stratton, 
The Duffryn, Newport, Monmouthshire. 
In the thirty-fourth volume of this ' Journal' there appeared two 
interesting articles on the growth of Flax, and its preparation for 
linen as practised in Ireland and on the Continent, by Michael 
Andrews, Esq., and H. M. Jenkins, F.G.S., respectively. 
The point of these articles appears to be the question whether 
flax cannot be profitably grown in this country for the purpose 
of linen-making, and whether, as corn-growing has proved so 
disastrous for some years past, with every probability of a con- 
tinuance of low prices, farmers would not do well to turn their 
attention to other crops that seem to offer a better prospect of 
remuneration. 
A propos to this, I propose very briefly to relate my little 
experience as a grower of flax, and to offer a few remarks upon 
the general question whether flax-growing ought not to be taken 
up by the British farmer. 
In the spring of 1880 I received a letter from Mr. A. Reed, • 
the manager of the Ely Paper Works, near Cardiff, informing 
me that he had lately been using a little flax in the manu- 
facture of his paper, that it answered well, and suggesting that I 
should grow some for him. I agreed to try a few acres, Mr. Reed 
paying me 4Z. 10s. per ton for the straw, straight from the 
threshing-machine. 
I selected a field of 8 acres, a sandy loam of moderate depth, 
on a gravel ; it had been manured with about 15 tons of farm- 
yard-manure, and ploughed in the winter. The previous crops 
were oats, three years in succession, grown entirely by the aid of 
nitrate of soda, no other manure having been applied. It will 
therefore be seen that the land was poor, not to say starved. I 
had intended to bring it into roots, but, as it was tolerably 
clean, and not caring to make my first experiment too flattering, 
I selected it for flax, which, after a couple of scarifj ings, and a 
