128 
Some Minor Farm Crops. 
sixty acres of such land occupied. Thomas Tusser , who 
lived at that time, sings — 
“ Good flax and good hemp to have of her own 
In Maie a good housewife will see it be sowne ” ; 
from which we may conclude that in the sixteenth century flax 
was probably grown on most farms, the fibre separation and 
subsequent spinning and weaving being carried out by the 
husbandman and his family in his home. 
Thirty years later this law was made more stringent, a fine 
of five pounds being imposed on all farmers not growing at 
least one acre of flax or hemp for every sixty acres of land 
cultivated (5 Eliz., c. 5). We find that Monyson writing in 
Elizabeth’s reign (see his “Itinerary,” ed. 1617, III., 179), 
says that husbandmen wore garments of coarse linen cloth 
made at home, as also did their Avives, and “ in generall ” their 
linen was coarse. 
From time to time various other methods were adopted for 
increasing the area devoted to the flax crop ; for example, in 
1691 the tithe levied on this commodity was reduced, in 1712 
a bounty Avas given on all exported British-made sail cloth, and 
laws Avere passed Avhich compelled people to bury their dead in 
linen, or to pay a fine. It is not surprising, therefore, to find 
that at that time flax Avas groAvn more or less in all parts of 
the kingdom ; indeed in many counties several thousands of 
acres of land were devoted annually to this crop. 
Numerous towns and villages sprung up in these flax- 
growing districts in response to the requirements of the 
industry, and the names of such places as Flaxton (in York- , 
shire), Little Steeping (in Lincolnshire), Retford (in Notts.), 
and Flax-Bourton (in Somerset), probably originated during 
this period of activity and serve to remind us to-day of the 
extent to which the flax industry Avas carried on in former 
vears. 
V 
Although the bounty system did not remain long in opera- 
tion, the area of land devoted to flax continued to increase 
when it was discontinued ; so much so, indeed, that some twenty 
years after that form of encouragement had ceased there were, 
m some parts of the country, more than three times the number 
of acres under flax than formerly. 
The introduction of cotton and the successful machine- 
spinning of that fibre reduced the English flax industrA' very 
considerably. About the year 1820 steam-driven flax-spinning 
machinery became commercially successful, but even this did 
not change the depressed condition of the industry very 
matei ially. ^Then, too, the high price to Avhich grain advanced 
during the Napoleonic War period naturally induced the better 
farmers to grow the usual grain crops rather than flax. In 
