2d8 OX THE CULTURE AND MANAGEMENT OF FLAX CROPS. 
bag, that may be placed to receive them. In rippling, great care 
should be taken to keep the flax even, andpiot to sutler it to entangle. 
The safest mode of preserving the seed is to follow the course 
pursued in saving clover-seed in England, viz. to form a stack and put 
the seed in layers on clean straw until it be convenient to thresh it. 
The first layer of straw should be placed on furze-fagots or branches, 
and the straw raised at least a foot high thereon, before any seed is 
spread on it. The stack should be completed with alternate layers of 
straw and seed, and well thatched. 
“ After the rippling, the steeping process commences, and this is 
the most important process which flax undergoes, and that which is 
least understood in Ireland. The steeping~pits should be prepared in 
spring or early in summer, and the water should be kept stagnant 
therein in order to soften. They should be seven or eight feet wide, 
sloping to six feet at bottom, and from three feet six inches to four feet 
deep. In their formation or cleansing, a sufficiency of earth or mud 
should be thrown on the banks at each side, to serve as a covering for 
the flax in due time. If the quantity of flax be considerable, it may 
be found convenient to have a range of pits, separated by narrow banks, 
between, so that the water can be removed by a shoot from the pit 
wherein the flax is about to be first placed, into the adjoining one. The 
flax having, after rippling, been bound in sheaves, each as large as two 
hands can grasp, the sheaves are to be placed regularly in the steeping- 
pit (the water being previously removed therefrom), the root ends of 
the first sheaf to the end bank, the root ends of the second sheaf on 
the band of the first sheaf, the root ends of the third sheaf on the band 
of the second sheaf, and so on, the root end of every layer meeting the 
band of the former one ; and all being in an oblique direction. When 
three layers are completed, a light covering of sedge, grass, or straw, 
should be put on the flax, and not less than four inches of mud on the 
grass or straw; then the water from the adjoining pit should be let 
over it, by opening the cross bank as far as is necessary, until the water, 
having filled the interstices below, rises over the mud, when the cross 
bank which separates the pit should be again made good. The mud 
should be well puddled, so as completely to exclude the light and air 
from the flax; and should any leakage subsequently occur, water should 
be supplied until it again rises over the mud. The proper time for 
steeping the flax varies from four to eight days and nights, according 
to the quality of the flax, the temperature of the weather, and the pro¬ 
perties of the water and mud. The object of steeping is to detach or 
loosen the fiax or bark from the pith or woody part, and the mode of 
