FLAX-Dressing. For many ages it was the practice to separate the boon or core from the flax, which is the bark of the plant, by the following simple hand methods. First, for breaking the boon, the stalks in small parcels were beat with a mallet; or, more dexterously, the break (Plate CCXVIII. fig. 1. and 2.) was used thus: The flax being held in the left hand across the Plate three under teeth or swords of the break (A, fig. 1. and fig. 1. and 2. a, fig. 2.), the upper teeth (B, fig. 1. and b, fig. 2.) were with the right hand quickly and often forced down upon the flax, which was artfully shifted and turned with the left hand. Next, for clearing the flax of the broken boon: the workman with his left hand held the flax over the stock (fig. 3. and 4.), while with his right hand he struck or thrashed the flax with the scutcher (fig. 5.).
These methods of breaking and scutching the flax being slow and very laborious, a water-mill was invented in Scotland about the year 1750; which, with some improvements, makes great dispatch, and in skilful and careful hands gives satisfaction. It has been generally constructed to break the boon by three dented rollers, placed one above the other. The middle one of which, being forced quickly round, takes the other two along with it, and one end of the handfuls of the flax being by the workman directed in between the upper and middle rollers, the flax is immediately drawn in by the rollers; a curved board or plate of tin behind the rollers directs the flax to return again between the middle and undermost rollers;—and thus the operation is repeated until the boon be sufficiently broke. Great weights of timber or stone at the ends of levers, press the upper and under rollers towards the middle one.
The scutching is next carried on by the mill in the following manner: Four arms, something like the hand-scutchers before described, project from a perpendicular axle; a box around the axle encloses these projecting scutchers; and this box is divided among the workmen, each having sufficient room to stand and handle his flax, which, through slits in the upper part and sides of the box, they hold in to the stroke of the scutchers; which, moving round horizontally, strike the flax across or at right angles, and so thrash out or clear it to the boon.
The breaking of the flax by rollers is scarcely subject to any objection, but that it is dangerous to workmen not sufficiently on their guard, who sometimes allow the rollers to take hold of their fingers, and thereby their whole arm is instantly drawn in: thus many have lost their arms. To avoid this danger, a break, upon the general principles of the hand-break before described, has been lately adapted to water-machinery, and used in place of rollers. The horizontal stroke of the scutchers was long thought too severe and wasteful of the flax; but very careful experiments have discovered that the waste complained of must be charged to the unskilfulness or negligence of the workmen, as in good hands the mill carries away nothing but what, if not so scutched off, must
be taken off in the heckling, with more loss both of time and flax. But to obviate this objection of the violence of the horizontal scutchers, an imitation of hand-scutching has lately been applied to water. The scutchers then project from a horizontal axle, and move like the arms of a check reel, striking the flax neither across nor perpendicularly down, but sloping in upon the parcel exactly as the flax is struck by the hand-scutcher. The sloping stroke is got by raising the scutching stock some inches higher than the centre of the axle; and by raising or lowering the stock over which the flax is held, or screwing it nearer to or farther from the scutchers, the workman can temper or humour the stroke almost as he pleases.
A lint mill, with horizontal scutchers upon a perpendicular axle, requires a house of two stories, the rollers or break being placed in the ground story, and the scutchers in the loft above; but a mill with vertical scutchers on a horizontal axle, requires but one ground story for all the machinery.
Another method of breaking and scutching flax, more expeditious than the old hand methods, and more gentle than water-mills, has also been invented in Scotland. It is much like the break and scutcher, giving the sloping stroke last described, moved by the foot. The treddle is remarkably long, and the scutchers are fixed upon the rim of a fly wheel. These foot machines are very useful where there are no water-mills, but they are far inferior to the mills in point of expedition.
The next operation that flax undergoes after scutching is heckling. The heckle (fig. 6.) is firmly fixed to a bench before the workman, who strikes the flax upon the teeth of the heckle, and draws it through the teeth. To persons unacquainted with that kind of work this may seem a very simple operation; but, in fact, it requires as much practice to acquire the slight of heckling well, and without wasting the flax, as any other operation in the whole manufacture of linen. They use coarser and wider toothed heckles, or finer, according to the quality of the flax; generally putting the flax through two heckles, a coarser one first, and next a fine one.
Flax for Cambic and fine Lawn, Thread, and Lace, is dressed in a manner somewhat different. It is not scutched so thoroughly as common flax; which from the scutch proceeds to the heckle, and from that to the spinner: whereas, this fine flax, after a rough scutching, is scraped and cleansed with a blunt knife upon the workman's knee covered with his leather apron; from the knife it proceeds to the spinner, who, with a brush made for the purpose, straights and dresses each parcel just before she begins to spin it.
The following observations on this subject, first published in the Gentleman's Magazine for June, 1787, seem worthy of particular attention.
Of the watering of Flax by a new method, so as to shorten labour, to add probably to the strength of the flax, and to give it a much finer colour, which would render the operation of bleaching safer and less tedious.
" Though the following reflections have for their
object an improvement in the very essential article of watering of flax, yet I must advertise the reader, that they are only theory, and must depend entirely for their truth and justification upon future experiments, skilfully and judiciously made. Should repeated trials prove the advantage of the new method proposed, we may venture to affirm, that it would be an improvement that would increase the national income in the agricultural branch many thousand pounds annually, would add greatly to the perfection of the linen manufacture, and over and above would suppress a very disagreeable nuisance, which the present method of watering flax occasions during some part of the summer in every flax-growing country.
" The intention of watering flax, is, in my opinion, to make the boon more brittle or friable, and, by soaking, to dissolve that gluey kind of sap that makes the bark of plants and trees adhere in a small degree to the woody part. The bark of flax is called the harle; and when separated from the useless woody part, the boon, this harle itself is called flax. To effect this separation easily, the practice has long prevailed, of soaking the flax in water to a certain degree of fermentation, and afterwards drying it. For this soaking some prefer rivulets that have a small current, and others stagnant water in ponds and lakes. In both methods the water acts as in all other cases of infusion and maceration; after two or three weeks it extracts a great many juices of a very strong quality, which in ponds give the water an inky tinge and offensive smell; and in rivulets mix in the stream and kill the fish. Nay, if this maceration be too long continued, the extracted and fermented sap will completely kill the flax itself. For if, instead of two or three weeks, the new flax were to lie soaking in the water four or five months, I presume it would be good for nothing but to be thrown upon the dunghill; both harle and boon would in time be completely rotted; yet the harle or flax, when entirely freed from this sap, and manufactured into linen, or into ropes, might lie many months under water without being much damaged; as linen, it may be washed and steeped in scalding water twenty times without losing much of its strength; and as paper, it acquires a kind of incorruptibility.
" It appears then essential to the right management of new flax, to get rid of this pernicious vegetable sap, and to macerate the boon; but from the complaints made against both the methods of watering now in use, there is reason to think that there is still great room for improvement in that article. In rivulets, the vegetable sap, as it is dissolved, is carried off by the current to the destruction of the fish. This prevents the flax from being stained; but the operation is tedious, and not complete, from the uncertainty of knowing when it is just enough, and not too much, or perhaps from neglect. In ponds, the inky tinge of the water often serves as a kind of dye to the flax, which imbibes it so strongly, that double the labour in bleaching will hardly bring the linen made of such flax to an equality in whiteness with linen made of flax untinged. This seems to be equally unwise, as though we were to dye cotton black first, in order to whiten it afterwards. These ponds, besides, become a great nuisance to the neighbourhood; the impregnated water is often of such a pernicious quality, that
Flax. cattle, however thirsty, will not drink of it; and the effluvia of it may perhaps be nearly as infectious as it is offensive. If this effluvia is really attended with any contagious effects in our cold climate, a thing worth the inquiring into, how much more pernicious must its effects have been in the hot climate of Egypt, a country early noted for its great cultivation of flax?
"I have often thought that the process of watering might be greatly improved and shortened by plunging the new flax, after it is rippled, into scalding water; which, in regard to extracting the vegetative sap, would do in five minutes more than cold water would do in a fortnight, or perhaps more than cold water could do at all, in respect to the clearing the plant of sap. Rough almonds, when thrown into scalding water, are blanched in an instant; but perhaps a fortnight's macerating those almonds in cold water would not make them part so easily with their skins, which are the same to them as the harle is to the flax. Were tea leaves to be infused in cold water a fortnight, perhaps the tea produced by that infusion would not be so good to the taste, or so strongly tinged to the eye, as what is effected by scalding water in five minutes. By the same analogy, I think, flax or any small twig would be made to part with its bark much easier and quicker by being dipped in boiling water, than by being steeped in cold water.
"This reflection opens a door for a great variety of new experiments in regard to flax. I would therefore recommend to gentlemen cultivators and farmers, to make repeated trials upon this new system, which would soon ascertain whether it ought to be adopted in practice or rejected. One thing, I think, we may be certain of, that if the Egyptians watered their flax in our common manner, they undoubtedly watered it in very warm water, from the great heat of their climate, which would probably make them neglect to think of water heated by any other means than that of the sun. A good general practice can only be established upon repeated trials. Though one experiment may fail, another with a little variation may succeed; and the importance of the object desired to be obtained will justify a good degree of perseverance in the prosecution of the means. In this view, as the Chinese thread is said to be very strong, it would be worth while to be acquainted with the practice of that distant nation, in regard to the rearing and manufacturing of flax, as well as with the methods used by the Flemings and the Dutch.
"Boiling water perhaps might at once clear the new flax from many impurities, which when not removed till it be spun into yarn, are then removed with difficulty, and with loss of substance to the yarn. Why should not the longitudinal fibres of the flax, before they be spun into yarn, be made not only as fine but as clean as possible? Upon the new system proposed, the act of bleaching would begin immediately after the rippling of the flax; and a little done then might perhaps save much of what is generally done after the spinning and weaving. To spin dirty flax with a view of cleaning it afterwards, appears to be the same impropriety as though we were to reserve part of the dressing given to leather till after it is made into a glove.
"Should the plunging of the flax into the boiling
water not suffice to make the boon brittle enough, as I am inclined to think it would not, then the common watering might be added; but in that case probably half the time usually given to this watering would suffice, and the flax might then be laid in clear rivulets, without any apprehension of its infecting the water and poisoning the fish, or of being discoloured itself; for the boiling water into which it had been previously put, would have extracted all the poisonous vegetative sap, which I presume is what chiefly discolours the flax or kills the fish.
"On the supposition that the use of boiling water in the preparation of flax may be found to be advantageous and profitable, I can recollect at present but one objection against its being generally adopted. Every flax-grower, it may be said, could not be expected to have conveniences for boiling water sufficient for the purpose; the consumption of water would be great; and some additional expence would be incurred. In answer to this I shall observe, that I presume any additional expence would be more than reimbursed by the better marketable price of the flax; for otherwise any new improvement, if it will not quit cost, must be dropt, were it even the searching after gold. In a large caldron a great deal of flax might be dipp'd in the same water, and the consumption perhaps would not be more than a quart to each sheaf. Even a large household pot would be capable of containing one sheaf after another; and I believe the whole objection would be obviated, were the practice to prevail with us, as in Flanders and Holland, that the flax-grower and the flax-dresser should be two distinct professions.
"I shall conclude with recommending to those who are inclined to make experiments, not to be discouraged by the failure of one or two trials.—Perhaps the flax, instead of being just plunged into the scalding water, ought to be kept in it five minutes, perhaps a quarter of an hour, perhaps a whole hour. Should five minutes or a quarter of an hour, or an hour, not be sufficient to make the boon and harle easily separate, it might perhaps be found expedient to boil the flax for more than an hour; and such boiling when in this state might in return save several hours boiling in the article of bleaching. It is not, I think, at all probable that the boiling of the flax with the boon in it would prejudice the harle; for in the course of its future existence, it is made to be exposed 20 or 40 times to this boiling trial; and if not detrimental in the one case, it is to be presumed it would not be detrimental in the other. Perhaps after boiling, it would be proper to pile up the flax in one heap for a whole day, or for half a day, to occasion some fermentation; or perhaps immediately after the boiling, it might be proper to wash it with cold water. The great object, when the flax is pulled, is to get the harle from the boon with as little loss and damage as possible; and if this is accomplished in a more complete manner than usual, considerable labour and expence will be saved in the future manufacturing of the flax. On this account I think much more would be gained than lost, were the two or three last inches of the roots of the stems to be chopped off, or clipped off, previous to the flax being either watered or boiled. When the flax is watered, care should be taken not to spread it out to dry,
dry, when there is a hazard of its being exposed in its wet state to frost."
To what we have now said we shall add the following short account of the flax husbandry of Ireland, in a letter which appeared in the Farmers Magazine, vol. vii. page 35.
"Having for several years (says the writer) been engaged in the culture of flax, I devoted a part of last summer to a tour through the manufacturing districts of Ireland. Here that branch of husbandry has long been established over a large extent of the country, and conducted with very considerable success. As some of the processes in this culture, which are followed with advantage, are either unknown to the Scots farmers, or are performed in a very awkward and inefficient manner, it might, I conceive, prove of no small benefit, were some of your intelligent correspondents induced to lay before them a plain sketch of the peculiar management observed by the Irish peasantry in this important article. I am the more desirous it should appear in your pages, because a periodical work on husbandry, conducted by a practical farmer, appears before the public with manifest advantage, and is received with that sort of deference which is due to experience and authority. The discussions of actual cultivators regarding the objects of their own profession, however new they may as yet be in the annals of agriculture, are far more likely to prove useful, that the writings of those volunteers in this favourite science, who are merely speculative and theoretical. I freely confess to you, Sir, that I found with pleasure your work widely circulated in the sister kingdom; and that the cause uniformly given for its popularity, was a degree of confidence placed in the practical skill of its conductor."
"During my progress through Ireland, the several processes of steeping, drying, and skutching, were in hand, and I think I found a peculiarity of management in these sufficient to affect the success of the whole business, and to confer a decided superiority on the produce of an acre of flax in Ireland over that in Scotland, both in quantity and value. It is no uncommon thing for a farmer in this country, who wishes to make up a sum for his rent, to sell a part of his lint on the foot, as it is termed; and for this he will commonly receive from 30 to 40 guineas per acre."
"1. The method of Steeping.—As soon as the crop has attained the proper degree of ripeness, (which is somewhat below your standard of maturity), the flax is pulped, and carried to a stagnant pool, dug for this purpose, moderately deep. It is allowed to remain there only from five to seven days, according to the temperature of the weather. After the fermentation in the steeping process has been carried to a degree sufficient to produce the requisite laxity of fibre, the flax is taken out of the pool, and spread very thinly on the stubble of the hay meadow. There, instead of remaining till it is merely dried, it is continued for three or four weeks, till the grower conceives it ready for skutching. This blenching process, if I am allowed to call it so, which, in Scotland, is either unknown, or continued merely till the crop is dried, has many advantages; the most obvious one is, that it enables the farmer, every time he examines it, to ascertain exactly (by rubbing on his hand) the precise point at which the fermentation has arrived, and thus to perceive the tenacity and strength
of his flax; while the adhesion of the fibre has been sufficiently weakened, to admit of the skutcher cleansing it completely of the woody parts. It is, I am apprehensive, only the practical flax farmer who is able to judge of the importance and delicacy of this part of the husbandry. It is so remarkable, that of two acres of flax, under precisely the same seed and culture, and of equal fertility, it frequently happens that the one shall yield a produce thrice the value of the other, merely from superior accuracy in ascertaining the proper time of continuing the steeping and blenching processes. In Scotland, therefore, I suspect the practice is faulty and defective; because there the whole process of fermentation is completed by steeping alone; whereas, in Ireland, it is begun only in the steep, and completed by blenching on the meadow, to that precise point which the safety of the produce requires.
"2. Smoking and Drying.—The Irish peasant seems to possess another advantage, almost equally decisive, in his mode of drying the flax, before he submits it to the skutcher or beater. After the lint has remained a sufficient length of time on the blenching green, it is gathered up a second time into sheafs, (beats, provincially), and seems tolerably dry. In this state it is deemed by the Scots growers fully prepared for the flax-mill; but far otherwise by the Irish farmer, who never submits it to the hands of the beaters till it has undergone a thorough smoking over a peat fire. For this purpose, he raises, at the back of a ditch, a small hurdle thinly wrought with osiers, and places it on four posts of wood, at the height of four feet above the level of the ground. A pretty strong fire of peats being kindled below, the heat and smoke pervade every part of the flax, which is placed perpendicularly above the hurdle. This process is continued, and fresh quantities of flax regularly added, till the whole crop is brought to a state of dryness, which, in this moist climate, can never be effected by the sun and the weather alone: by this operation a degree of brittleness and friability is produced on the straw, which greatly facilitates the ensuing work, and admits of an easy separation of the fibre from the wood. It is evident, that the less friction required in skutching, the less waste or diminution must be occasioned in clearing the flax; and consequently, the greater must be the grower's produce from the mill. This part of the process is equally delicate with that described above, and requires, if possible, still greater attention on the part of the workmen, since it is clear that, by a careless management of the fire, the whole crop may be destroyed."
"3. Cleansing and Dressing.—The flax husbandry of Ireland derives no small benefit from the application of hand-labour in the beating and skutching of lint, thus superseding the use of the mill. The most careful and expert workmen are not always able to temper the velocity of machinery so exactly, as to preserve flax that has been oversteeped or blenched to excess: while the steady and regulated impetus of the hand skutch can easily be modified, as the circumstances of each case may require; a matter of obvious advantage, because the best flax-mills seldom produce an equal quantity of lint, nor equally clean, with that which is obtained by the hand. Besides this, the price of labour in this part of the united kingdom, still continues so moderate, as to preclude any considerable degree of saving in ex-
pence by the use of machinery. In proof of this, the flax millers in Scotland, I find, are charging this season from three to four shillings for dressing a stone of flax; while, at the place I am now writing, the same quantity is dressed by the hand for thirteenpence, or one British shilling. In Scotland, where hands are scarce, and the price of labour consequently high, I certainly would not recommend the disuse of the flax-mill; on the contrary, I am persuaded that it is chiefly owing to our superior machinery, and excellent implements of husbandry, that we are at all enabled to maintain a competition with our neighbours in the present state of our skill in flax husbandry, and subjected to the disadvantage of paying double price for labour.
"4. Preservation of Flax-seed.—The last peculiarity of management, which I shall at present notice as advantageous to the flax husbandry of Ireland, is the invention of a flax barn for the preservation of seed. Enjoying a climate perhaps still more moist and unsteady than that of Great Britain, the farmers here were, for a long series of years, unable to supply themselves with this article, and were obliged to commission seed annually from America and the Baltic, to supply the increased demands of an extended culture, to the large amount of 200,000l. sterling. The annual expenditure of cash long continued to operate as a drain on the stock of the laborious farmer, and prevented the accumulation of his capital; an evil of the most serious magnitude, under which the Irish peasantry still labour, and from which, till very lately, they had not even a prospect of relief. By the practice in universal use, if the farmer stored up his lint in the barn-yard with the rest of his crop in harvest, he might, it is true, preserve his seed; but in doing so, he uniformly lost his flax to a far greater value from overdryness, when wrought in the spring.
"If, on the other hand, he attempted to separate his seed during the lint harvest by means of the rippling-comb, he had no means of preventing it from being almost invariably destroyed by the wetness of the climate. Various methods had been attempted to overcome this difficulty, but without success; till Robert Tennant, Esq. of Strangmore, linen-inspector, near Dungannon, contrived the plan of a flax-barn, which seems perfectly competent to the preservation of seed. It has already been erected, and has proved successful on a small scale; the seed cured in it remained during the winter perfectly fresh, and nothing seems wanting to complete this improvement in our flax husbandry, but a larger capital in the hands of a few of our farmers. This flax barn is constructed on wooden posts, roofed on the top, but left perfectly open at each side; it is supplied with various stages of floors of basket-work, placed regularly at two feet distance above each other. Thus, the air, having free access to the seed on all sides, preserves it fresh and well-coloured for any length of time.
"This contrivance was suggested to Mr Tennant, it is said, almost casually, by noticing the great effect produced on cloth, by drying-houses in bleachfields. He had in fact been employed by the Linen Board of Ireland, in teaching the new process of bleaching to the manufacturers, by means of the oxymuriate of lime; and, in the course of seven or eight years, this method of whitening linen has been established over the whole
kingdom, with the exception of hardly a single field. Lord Northland and Mr Foster, who invited this gentleman from Scotland, and patronized him in this part of the kingdom, have enjoyed the satisfaction of beholding a more essential improvement effected in the linen manufacture, in the short space already mentioned, than had ever taken place in a century before.
"It was my intention, when I began this letter, to have presented you a more minute description of a flax farm, and to have laid before your readers, a more detailed account of the flax husbandry of Ireland in general. I find, however, that I have already exceeded the ordinary bounds prescribed to the contributors to your useful work; therefore conclude, with expressing a hope, that the few hints already offered, will incline some of your correspondents to treat of a subject certainly of sufficient importance to merit attention. For a branch of husbandry cannot be deemed contemptible, which affords sustenance to upwards of two millions of people; and which, at the same time, adds to the general resources of the empire, no less a sum than seven millions sterling annually. These circumstances, too, I trust, will plead my excuse for holding up a portion of Irish husbandry to the imitation of your numerous readers among the cultivators of Scotland, who are at present justly celebrated for their agricultural knowledge in every part of the world."
FLAX made to resemble Cotton. In the Swedish Transactions for the year 1747, a method is given of preparing flax in such a manner as to resemble cotton in whiteness and softness, as well as in coherence. For this purpose a little sea water is to be put into an iron pot or an untinned copper kettle, and a mixture of equal parts of birch ashes and quicklime strewed upon it: A small bundle of flax is to be opened and spread upon the surface, and covered with more of the mixture, and the stratification continued till the vessel is sufficiently filled. The whole is then to be boiled with sea water for ten hours, fresh quantities of water being occasionally supplied in proportion to the evaporation, that the water may never become dry. The boiled flax is to be immediately washed in the sea by a little at a time, in a basket, with a smooth stick at first while hot; and when grown cold enough to be borne by the hands, it must be well rubbed, washed with soap, laid to bleach, and turned and watered every day. Repetitions of the washing with soap expedite the bleaching; after which the flax is to be beaten, and again well-washed; when dry it is to be worked and carded in the same manner as common cotton, and pressed betwixt two boards for 48 hours. It is now fully prepared and fit for use. It loses in this process near one half its weight, which is abundantly compensated by the improvement made in its quality.
The filamentous parts of different vegetables have been employed in different countries for the same mechanic uses as hemp and flax among us. See FILAMENT.
Earth-FLAX. See AMIANTHUS, BOTANY INDEX.
New Zealand FLAX Plant. See PHORMIUM, BOTANY INDEX.
Toad-FLAX. See LINARIA, BOTANY INDEX.
FLAX. See PULEX, ENTOMOLOGY INDEX.