FLAX, in Botany. See LINUM, BOTANY Index. The following particulars with regard to the manner of raising flax, have been some years past warmly recommended by the trustees for fisheries, manufactures, and improvements in Scotland.
Of the choice of the Soil, and preparing the ground for FLAX. A skilful flax-raiser always prefers a free open deep loam; and all grounds that produced the preceding year a good crop of turnip, cabbage, potatoes, barley, or broad clover, or have been formerly laid down rich, and kept for some years in pasture.
A clay soil, the second or third crop after being limed, will answer well for flax; provided, if the ground be still stiff, that it be brought to a proper mould, by tilling after harvest to expose it to the winter frosts.
All new grounds produce a strong crop of flax, and pretty free of weeds. When a great many mole heaps appear upon new ground, it answers the better for flax, after one tilling.
Flax seed ought never to be sown on grounds that are either too wet or dry; but on such as retain a natural moisture: and such grounds as are inclined to weeds ought to be avoided, unless prepared by a careful summer fallow.
If the linseed be sown early, and the flax not allowed to stand for seed, a crop of turnip may be got after the flax that very year; the second year a crop of bear or barley may be taken; and the third year, grass feeds are sometimes sown along with the linseed. This is the method mostly practised in and about the counties of Lincoln and Somerset, where great quantities of flax and hemp are every year raised, and where these crops have long been capital articles. There, old
ploughed grounds are never sown with linseed, unless the soil be very rich and clean. A certain worm, called in Scotland the corp worm, abounds in grounds newly broken up, and greatly hurts every crop but flax. In small enclosures surrounded with trees or high hedges, the flax, for want of free air, is subject to fall before it be ripe; and the droppings of rain and dew from the trees prevent the flax, within the reach of the trees, from growing to any perfection.
Of preceding crops, potatoes and hemp are the best preparation for flax. In the fens of Lincoln, upon proper ground of old tillage, they sow hemp, dunging well the first year; the second year, hemp without dung; the third year, flax without dung; and that same year, a crop of turnip eaten on the ground by sheep; the fourth year, hemp with a large coat of dung; and so on for ever.
If the ground be free and open, it should be but once ploughed; and that as shallow as possible, not deeper than 2½ inches. It should be laid flat, reduced to a fine garden mould by much harrowing, and all stones and sods should be carried off.
Except a little pigeons dung for cold or four ground, no other dung should be used preparatory for flax; because it produces too many weeds, and throws up the flax thin and poor upon the stalk.
Before sowing, the bulky clods should be broken, or carried off the ground; and stones, quickenings, and every other thing that may hinder the growth of the flax should be removed.
Of the choice of Linseed. The brighter in colour, and heavier the seed is, so much the better; that which when bruised appears of a light or yellowish green, and fresh in the heart, oily and not dry, and smells and tastes sweet, and not fatty, may be depended upon.
Dutch seed of the preceding year's growth, for the most part, answers best; but it seldom succeeds if kept another year. It ripens sooner than any other foreign seed. Philadelphia seed produces fine lint and few bolls, because sown thick, and answers best in wet cold soils. Riga seed produces coarser lint, and the greatest quantity of seed. Scots seed, when well winnowed and kept, and changed from one kind of soil to another, sometimes answers pretty well; but should be sown thick, as many of its grains are bad, and fail. It springs well, and its flax is sooner ripe than any other; but its produce afterwards is generally inferior to that from foreign seed.
A kind has been lately imported called Mommel seed; which looks well, is short and plump, but seldom grows above eight inches, and on that account ought not to be sown.
Of sowing Linseed. The quantity of linseed sown should be proportioned to the condition of the soil; for if the ground be in good heart, and the seed sown thick, the crop will be in danger of falling before it is ready for pulling. From 11 to 12 pecks Linthgow measure of Dutch or Riga seed, is generally sufficient for one Scots acre; and about 10 pecks of Philadelphia seed, which, being the smallest grained, goes farthest. Riga linseed, and the next year's produce of it, is preferred in Lincolnshire.
The time for sowing linseed is from the middle of March to the end of April, as the ground and season answers;
answers; but the earlier the seed is sown, the less the crop interferes with the corn harvest.
Late sown linseed may grow long, but the flax upon the stalk will be thin and poor.
After sowing, the ground ought to be harrowed till the seed is well covered, and then, (supposing the soil, as before mentioned, to be free and reduced to a fine mould) it ought to be rolled.
When a farmer sows a large quantity of linseed, he may find it proper to sow a part earlier and part later, that in the future operations of weeding, pulling, watering, and grassing, the work may be the easier and more conveniently gone about.
It ought always to be sown on a dry bed.
Of Weeding FLAX. It ought to be weeded when the crop is about four inches long. If longer deferred, the weeders will so much break and crook the stalks, that they will never perhaps recover their straightness again; and when the flax grows crooked, it is more liable to be hurt in the rippling and swingling.
Quicken grass should not be taken up; for, being strongly rooted, the pulling of it always loosens a deal of the lint.
If there is an appearance of a settled drought, it is better to defer the weeding, than by that operation to expose the tender roots of the flax to the drought.
How soon the weeds are got out, they ought to be carried off the field, instead of being laid in the furrows, where they often take root again, and at any rate obstruct the growth of the flax in the furrows.
Of Pulling FLAX. When the crop grows so short and branchy, as to appear more valuable for feed than flax, it ought not to be pulled before it be thoroughly ripe; but if it grows long and not branchy, the feed should be disregarded, and all the attention given to the flax. In the last case it ought to be pulled after the bloom has fallen, when the stalk begins to turn yellow, and before the leaves fall, and the bolls turn hard and sharp-pointed.
When the stalk is small, and carries few bolls, the flax is fine; but the stalk of coarse flax is gross, rank, branchy, and carries many bolls.
When the flax has fallen, and lies, such as lies ought to be immediately pulled, whether it has grown enough or not, as otherwise it will rot altogether.
When parts of the same field grow unequally, so that some parts are ready for pulling before other parts; only what is ready should be pulled, and the rest should be suffered to stand till ready.
The flax-raiser ought to be at pains to pull and keep by itself, each different kind of lint which he finds in his field; what is both long and fine, by itself; what is both long and coarse, by itself; what is both short and fine, by itself; what is both short and coarse, by itself; and in like manner every other kind by itself that is of the same size and quality. If the different kinds be not thus kept separate, the flax must be much damaged in the watering and the other succeeding operations.
What is commonly called under-growth may be neglected as useless.
Few persons that have seen pulled flax, are ignorant of the method of laying it in handfuls across each
other; which gives the flax sufficient air, and keeps the handfuls separate and ready for the rippler.
Of Stacking up FLAX during the Winter, and Winning the Seed. If the flax be more valuable than the seed, it ought by no means to be stacked up; for its own natural juice assists it greatly in the watering; whereas, if kept long unwatered, it loses that juice, and the harle adheres so much to the boon, that it requires longer time to water, and even the quality of the flax becomes thereby harsher and coarser. Besides, the flax stacked up over year, is in great danger from vermine and other accidents; the water in spring is not so soft and warm as in harvest; and near a year is thereby lost of the use of the lint: but if the flax be so short and branchy as to appear most valuable for feed, it ought, after pulling, to be stooked and dried upon the field, as is done with corn; then stacked up for winter, rippled in spring; and after sheeling, the feed should be well cleaned from bad seeds, &c.
Of Rippling FLAX. After pulling, if the flax is to be regarded more than the feed, it should be allowed to lie some hours upon the ground to dry a little, and so gain some firmness, to prevent the skin or harle, which is the flax, from rubbing off in the rippling; an operation which ought by no means to be neglected, as the bolls, if put into the water along with the flax, breed vermine there, and otherwise spoil the water. The bolls also prove very inconvenient in the grassing and breaking.
In Lincolnshire and Ireland, they think that rippling hurts the flax; and therefore, in place of rippling, they strike the bolls against a stone.
The handfuls for rippling should not be great, as that endangers the lint in the rippling comb.
After rippling, the flax-raiser will perceive, that he is able to assort each size and quality of the flax by itself more exactly than he could before.
Of Watering FLAX. A running stream wastes the lint, makes it white, and frequently carries it away. Lochs, by the great quantity and motion of the water, also waste and whiten the flax, though not so much as running streams. Both rivers and lochs water the flax quicker than canals.
But all flax ought to be watered in canals, which should be digged in clay ground if possible, as that soil retains the water best: but if a firm retentive soil cannot be got, the bottom or sides of the canal, or both the bottom and sides, may be lined with clay; or instead of lining the sides with clay, which might fall down, a ditch may be dug without the canal, and filled with clay, which will prevent both extraneous water from entering, and the water within from running off.
A canal of 40 feet long, six broad, and four deep, will generally water the growth of an acre of flax.
It ought to be filled with fresh soft water from a river or brook, if possible, two or three weeks before the flax is put in, and exposed all that time to the heat of the sun. The greater way the river or brook has run, the softer, and therefore the better, will the water be. Springs, or short runs from hills, are too cold, unless the water is allowed to stand long in the canal. Water from coal or iron is very bad for flax. A little of the powder of galls thrown into a glass of water, will