32 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
the unexpended "balance of tlie appropriation for that purpose. While 
complete success in cottonizing flax was not obtained, practical results of 
great economic value have been accomplished, and improved fabrics have 
been placed in the market by manufacturers who have been most success- 
ful in their experiments, and who are still continuing their efforts in that 
direction.” 
Under the stimulus of these several organized efforts, effect¬ 
ually sustained during the war by the high prices of cotton 
goods and the high premium on gold, the production has 
greatly increased; some producers, since the decline of gold 
and cotton, growing the crop for both fibre and seed, and oth¬ 
ers for the seed alone. 
According to the statistician of the Agricultural Depart¬ 
ment, [See Eeport of 1869, p. 58,] the proportion of flax- 
fibre wasted throughout the country is no less than three- 
fourths—a fact which, taken in connection with the annual im¬ 
portation of something like $23,000,000 worth of fibre from for¬ 
eign countries, is farther proof of how much depends on the 
improvement of our processes of manufacture. 
But with an indifferent demand for the fibre—and this 
demand could be largely increased by the establishment of 
simple dressing mills in every section specially adapted to the 
crop—and even at present moderate prices for the fibre and 
seed, any farmer who understands the necessities of the crop, 
and has a suitable soil, can make a crop of flax pay better 
than wheat, as a rule. Indeed, it is claimed by some farmers 
in the west, who have grown it for years, that it pays better 
than wheat, if grown for seed alone. 
It possesses the advantage of being adapted to any deep, 
strong, heavy upland soil if naturally well drained, (the New 
Yorkers say, to any soil that will grow good barley,) and of 
working in with other crops so that a double product may, 
with proper regard to manuring, be obtained from a given 
piece of land in a single season. And if the refuse of both 
straw and seed be converted into manure, as it should 
be, so far from being an exhausting crop, as is sometimes 
claimed, it is really much less so than wheat. 
