470 
Flax for Paper-making: 
Then, again, we paid the foreigner : — 
£ 
For linseed in 1880 4,260,000 
And for oilseed-cake 1,242,834 
Before allowing our good wheat soils to become bad pasture, 
is it not worth while trj ing flax, which offers a fair prospect of 
being as remunerative as wheat at Is. per bushel (which price 
would thoroughly satisfy the most disconsolate of wheat farmers), 
and keep some of the money in this country which is now 
enriching the foreigner? 
The demand for flax for paper-making seems more likely to 
find favour with the farmers of this country than the demand 
for fibre for the linen trade, because the trouble attendant on 
the preparation, and the ignorance that must necessarily prevail 
as to the proper management of a completely new and compli- 
cated business, together with the difficulty of finding the best 
market, and the uncertainty as to the value of the article pro- 
duced, combine to form a strong bar against individual larmers 
taking up a new track of this kind. But should a company of 
landlords and farmers take the matter up (and the present seems 
a very favourable opportunity for doing so), there appears to be 
every prospect of success ; for there can be little doubt that the 
growth and preparation of flax for linen, where carried out on 
the right principles, as in Holland, described by Mr. Jenkins 
in the thirty-fourth number of the ' Journal,' page 430, the result 
must be highly satisfactory. But 1 take it that the first prin- 
ciple of success must be that the farmer has simply to grow the 
flax (perhaps thresh it) and deliver it to the manufacturer, who 
must undertake the retting, scutching, and everything else 
connected with the management of the fibre. It is enough 
for the farmer to produce the raw material, and more than that 
he will not do ; but, ensure a fair price for the raw material, 
and enough flax will be grown in this country to render us 
independent of any foreign supply. 
Bearing upon this question, the following letters from 
Mr. Thomson afford information that will assist in forming an 
estimate of the results of flax-farming from a linen point of 
view : — 
Extracts from Mr. Thomson's Letters. 
" Ligoniel House, Belfast. 
" The style of scutcliing, of which results are here noted, is that known as 
ordinary scutching, in contradistinction to scutching by hand, or by any 
of tlie so-called patent processes. 
" With Irish fanners it is very difficult to arrive at exact details as to 
weight, j)roduce, &c., of their flax crops, as very few of them take the trouble 
of wci:;hing the flax-straw before scutching. The following is the information 
you desire in the form in which I intend to give it in my book. 
