20 
BULLETIN 1092, U. S. DEPARTMENT OE AGRICULTURE. 
acreage required, it was more practical after this time to follow the 
method used with seed flax, that of sowing in 7-inch drill rows at 
the rate of about one- ! 
half bushel per acre. 
If by a thin rate 
of seeding 40 seeds 
could be obtained for 
each one planted, then 
each harvest season 
would multiply the 
number of pounds of 
seed by 40. From two 
harvest seasons in a 
year the number of 
seeds started with 
could be multiplied 
by 40 twice, or by 
40 and again by 40, 
which is 1,600 times. 
It is necessary to grow 
flax as a winter crop 
in a southern climate 
in order to secure two 
harvests the same 
year, and Porto Eico 
gave promise of being 
a suitable place. 
In 1917 a small 
trial plat of flax as 
a spring crop in Porto 
Eico gave a splendid 
growth, and in the 
spring of 1918 an in- 
crease of 26 times was 
secured, but owing to 
delay in the shipment 
the seed arrived too 
late for spring plant- 
ing in Michigan. The 
idea was then con- 
ceived of planting 
a fall crop in Porto 
Eico, so as to allow 
time enough for the seed to be shipped north in the spring and arrive 
in clue season for sowing. The flax seed which had been increased 42 
times in the summer of 1918 at East Lansing was planted the last 
Fig. 9. — Fiber of pedigreed fiber flax (at left) compared with 
that of the Blue-Blossom Dutch variety (at right). 
