1 Mar., 1902.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 171 
into the grass paddocks to “retten” or ripen, as we used to call it. We had 
ls. per bushel for stamping the seed out. The most difficult operation was 
the retting of the flax (as Messrs. Woolfe Brothers point out), because it does 
not all retten together. Sometimes we had-to look it over every day and turn 
it to prevent the worms drawing it into the ground in very wet weather, 
especially when all was retted. We had a humpy built in which to prepare 
the fibre for market. In those days, in very damp weather, we used to drive 
the dampness out of the fibre by means of two long poles about 20 feet long 
stuck up on forks with a bank thrown up round in the form of a pit. The 
flax was spread on top of the poles to a depth of about 6 inches thick, and a 
steady fire was then kept up underneath made of the scales from the flax. 
This was done every nixht in damp weather, and the flax was then put away 
for the next day. Ido not think this would be required in this country, as 
the sun alone would be hot enough to dry it. 
(Lo be continued.) 
NEWSPAPER COPYRIGHT, 
The editors of certain Australasian newspapers [and also of some outside 
of Australasia—Ed, Q.4.J.] are afflicted with a mental obliquity which prevents 
their recognising the dishonesty of appropriating articles without leave from 
the owners. This is particularly noticeable in respect to articles written by 
officers of the various departments of agriculture for the monthly journals 
published by those departments—so much so that in several of the States the 
departments have been driven to copyright their properties. The officers are 
paid by the States to do certain work, amongst the duties being the education 
of the public by writings in the departmental journals. ‘The newspapers 
copying those writings are in the habit of publishing the same as having been 
written by the authors for their own newspaper, carefully omitting the fact that 
the articles were written expressly for the departmental journal, and thus 
the readers are deluded into the belief that the newspaper proprietor has 
engaged the whole of the State specialists—professors, horticultural, agricultural, 
and other instructors—to write for his columns. The imputation of deceitful- 
ness and dishonesty could easily be exploded if the proprietors of those papers 
would notify—in the usual way—that the borrowed article was written by such 
and such a person for the Agricultural Journal of Queensland, or New South 
Wales, or South Australia, or otherwise, and neither the officers in question 
nor the departments would feel aggrieved. Under present conditions, where 
no copyright is enforced, there are several officials who neglect to contribute to 
their departmental journals, because their writings and their names are 
piratically used by unscrupulous editors.—Journal of Agriculture, South 
Australia. 
