Flax for Paper-maldng. 
467 
upon the quality of the flax. For instance, at Ely they make 
only news-paper, and here they require a strongs, rather than a 
fine and expensive material. Flax is used sparingly, among a 
quantity of inferior ingredients, to bring the whole up to the 
required standard. In this case there can be very little doubt 
that the finer portions of the flax should be sold for linen- 
making, and the coarser portions only made use of for paper. 
But in the case of the manufacture of fine strong paper, for 
making which they are now paying 20/. per ton for half-rotten 
old sails, it would probably be economical to use the best of the 
fibre as well as the inferior ; but this is a matter of detail, and it 
will be sufficient to know that, should it be found profitable to 
use any portion for linen, it certainly will have a tendency to 
improve the price to the grower. 
Hitherto flax has generally been grown either for the fibre 
alone, or for the seed alone ; for instance, in Belgium they grow 
almost entirely for the fibre ; in Central Russia the fibre only is 
cared for ; while in Southern Russia the seed only is accounted 
of value. It has probably been owing to the difficulty of finding 
a good market for both fibre and seed that has caused flax to be 
so little grown in this country. But this new demand combines 
the two, allows full advantage to be taken of the seed-crop, and 
at the same time affords a fairly good market for the fibre. 
But there are probably other good reasons why flax has not 
been grown more. Wheat was formerly a very paying crop : it 
is easy to manage, grown without much difficulty, easy to har- 
vest, and very convertible into cash ; and at Is. or even 6s. per 
bushel, with good harvests, was the farmer's sheet-anchor, and 
often pulled him through when the more precarious spring 
crops failed him. Moreover, the farmer found that he required 
a special education to produce a good marketable flax-fibre, that 
its preparation greatly interfered with his other work : in short, 
that it was a special business, and, like a combination of farm- 
ing and market-gardening, it did not answer, and could only be 
made to answer by making a specialty of it. Yet Mr. Goulton 
did well at the business, notwithstanding the fact that he had 
to pay from hi. to 8/. an acre for the land, and to take it in plots 
of from 20 to 100 acres, at distances varying up to 100 miles 
from his place of business ; and, to use his own expression : " If 
I could have sold my waste for paper-making, I should have 
been as rich as Sir Titus Salt." 
Then, again, it was formerly the usual thing for landlords to 
prohibit the growth of flax, from an erroneous impression that it 
was an exhaustive crop for the land, and also from the laudable 
idea that it was their first duty to produce as much food as pos- 
sible for the people, as will be seen from the following extract 
2 H 2 
