in commerce, a well-known kind of cloth, chiefly made of flax. See FLAX.

In order to succeed in the linen manufacture, one set of people should be confined to the plowing and preparing the soil, sowing and covering the seed, to the weeding, pulling, rippling, taking care of the new seed, and watering and grafting the flax, till it is lodged at home; others should be concerned in the drying, breaking, scutching, and heckling the flax, to fit it for the spinners; and others in spinning and reeling it, to fit it for the weaver; others should be concerned in taking due care of the weaving, bleaching, beetleing, and finishing the cloth for the market. It is reasonable to believe, that if these several branches of the manufacture were carried on by distinct dealers in Scotland and Ireland, where our home-made linens are manufactured, the several parts would be better executed, and the whole would be afforded cheaper, and with greater profit.