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 expel 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 bean or barley may be taken; and the third year, grass seeds 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 coup 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 fail 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 sour 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 feed produces fine lint and few bolls, because sown thick, and answers best in wet cold soils. Riga feed produces coarser lint, and the greatest quantity of seed. Scots feed, when well winned 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 Memmel 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 Linlithgow 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 farther. 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; Flax 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 feed 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 too 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 twining.

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 seed 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 grofs, 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 feed, 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 seed, 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 seed 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 grading 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 afford 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 dugged in clay ground if possible, as that foil 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 will immediately discover if it comes from minerals of that kind, by turning it into a dark colour, more or less tinged in proportion to the quantity of vitriol it contains.

The canal ought not to be under shade: which, besides keeping the sun from softening the water, might make part of the canal cooler than other parts, and so water the flax unequally.

The flax-raiser will observe, when the water is brought to a proper heat, that small plants will be rising quickly in it, numbers of small insects and reptiles will be generating there, and bubbles of air rising on the surface. If no such signs appear, the water must not be warm enough, or is otherwise unfit for flax.

Moss holes, when neither too deep nor too shallow, frequently answer well for watering flax, when the water is proper, as before described.

The proper season for watering flax is from the end of July to the end of August.

The advantage of watering flax as soon as possible after pulling, has been already mentioned.

The flax being sorted after rippling, as before mentioned, should next be put in beets, never larger than a man can grasp with both his hands, and tied very slack with a band of a few stalks. Dried rushes answer exceedingly well for binding flax, as they do not rot in the water, and may be dried and kept for use again.

The beets should be put into the canals floppewise, or half standing upon end, the root end uppermost. Upon the crop ends, when uppermost, there frequently breeds a deal of vermine, destructive of the flax, which is effectually prevented by putting the crop end downmost.

The whole flax in the canal ought to be carefully covered from the sun with divots; the grassy side of which should be next the flax, to keep it clean. If it is not thus covered, the sun will discolour the flax, though quite covered with water. If the divots are not weighty enough to keep the flax entirely under water, a few stones may be laid above them. But the flax should not be pressed to the bottom.

When the flax is sufficiently watered, it feels soft to the gripe, and the harle parts easily with the boon or show, which last is then become brittle, and looks whitish. When these signs are found, the flax should be taken out of the water, beat after beet; each gently rinsed in the water, to cleanse it of the nastiness which has gathered about it in the canal; and as the lint is then very tender, and the beet slackly tied, it must be carefully and gently handled.

Great care ought to be taken that no part be overdone; and as the coarsest waters soonest, if different kinds be mixed together, a part will be rotted, when the rest is not sufficiently watered.

When lint taken out of the canal is not found sufficiently watered, it may be laid in a heap for 12, 18, or 24 hours, which will have an effect like more watering; but this operation is nice, and may prove dangerous in unskilful hands.

After the flax is taken out of the canal, fresh lint should not be put a second time into it, until the former water be run off, and the canal cleaned, and supplied with fresh water.

Of Grafting Flax. Short heath is the best field for grafting flax; as, when wet, it fattens to the heath, and is thereby prevented from being blown away by the wind. The heath also keeps it a little above the earth, and so exposes it the more equally to the weather. When such heath is not to be got, links or clean old lea ground is the next best. Long grafts should be avoided, as the grafts growing through the lint frequently spots, tenders, or rots it; and grounds exposed to violent winds should also be avoided.

The flax, when taken out of the water, must be spread very thin upon the ground: and being then very tender, it must be gently handled. The thinner it is spread the better, as it is then the more equally exposed to the weather. But it ought never to be spread during a heavy shower, as that would wash and waste the harle too much, which is then excessively tender, but soon after becomes firm enough to bear the rains, which, with the open air and sunshine, cleans, softens, and purifies the harle to the degree wanted, and makes it blister from the boon. In short, after the flax has got a little firmness by being a few hours spread in dry weather, the more rain and sunshine it gets the better.

If there be little danger of high winds carrying off the flax, it will be much the better of being turned about once a week. If it is not to be turned, it ought to be very thin spread. The spreading of flax and hemp requires a deal of ground, and enriches it greatly.

The skilful flax-raiser spreads his first row of flax at the end of the field opposite to the point from whence the most violent wind commonly comes, placing the root-ends foremost; he makes the root-ends of every other row overlap the crop ends of the former row three or four inches, and binds down the last row with a rope; by which means the wind does not easily get below the lint to blow it away; and as the crop ends are seldom so fully watered as the root ends, the aforementioned overlapping has an effect like giving the crop ends more watering. Experience only can fully teach a person the signs of flax being sufficiently grafted: then it is of a clearer colour than formerly; the harle is blistered up, and easily parts with the boon, which is then become very brittle. The whole should be sufficiently grafted before any of it is lifted; for if a part be lifted sooner than the rest, that which remains is in great danger from the winds.

A dry day ought to be chosen for taking up the flax; and if there is no appearance of high wind, it should be loosed from the heath or graft, and left loose for some hours, to make it thoroughly dry.

As a great quantity of flax can scarcely be all equally watered and grafted, and as the different qualities will best appear at lifting the flax off the grafts; therefore at that time each different kind should be gathered together, and kept by itself; that is, all of the same colour, length, and quality.

The smaller the beets lint is made up in, the better for drying, and the more convenient for stacking, housing, &c., and in making up these beets, as in every other operation upon flax, it is of great consequence that the lint be laid together as it grew, the root ends together, and the crop ends together. Follows Ground rent, labouring the ground, and leading the flax Linseed from 2l. to 4l. per hoghead, the medium 3s. 4d. per peck

Clodding and sowing Weeding Pulling, ruffling, putting in, and covering in the water Taking out of the water, grassing, and stacking Breaking and scutching, at 2s. per stone

Total expense

Produce at 10s. per stone.

Linseed sold for oil at 18s. per peck

The chaff of the bolls is well worth the expense of drying the seed; as it is good food, when boiled and mixed with bear, for horses.

Total produce

Balance for profit

| A medium crop | A great crop | An extra crop | |---------------|--------------|---------------| | L. 2 10 | L. 3 10 | L. 5 | | 16 8 | 10 | 6 8 | | for 11 pecks. | for 9 pecks. | for 8 pecks. | | 2 | 2 | 2 | | 12 | 8 | nothing | | 14 | 15 | 1 | | 8 | 12 | 18 | | 3 | 4 | 6 | | for 30 stones.| for 40 stones.| for 60 stones.| | L. 9 2 8 | L. 10 17 | L. 14 6 8 | | L. 15 | L. 20 | L. 30 | | for 30 stones.| for 40 stones.| for 60 stones.| | 16 | 18 | |

The above estimate being made several years ago, the expense and profit are now different; but the proportions of each are probably the same. There is nothing stated here as expense of the canal in which the flax is watered; because that varies much according to circumstances.

It is a certain fact, that the greater the crop is, the better is the quality of the same kind of flax.

The advantage of having both a crop of flax and a crop of turnip the same year—or of sowing grass seeds along with the linseed—and of reducing the ground to a fine garden mould, free of weeds, ought to be attended to.

For Cambrian and fine Lawn. The ground must be a rich light soil, rather sandy, but cannot be too rich.

It ought to be ploughed in September, or the beginning of October, first putting a little hot rotten dung upon it. In January it ought to have a second ploughing, after a hard frost; and when you intend to sow it, plough it a third time, or rather hoe it, reducing the clods very fine; but make no furrows: the land must be made level like a garden; but never work the land when wet.

The seed should be sown the beginning of April, and about double the quantity that is generally sown by our farmers; if the land be very rich, it will require rather more than double.

As soon as sown (if the weather be dry) it will be necessary to roll the ground.

The lint must be weeded very clean when about three inches high; directly after which you must set forked sticks, of about one and a half inch thick (which ought to be prepared before), every four or five feet, according to the length of the poles you are to lay upon them; they should be well fixed in the ground, the forked part to receive the poles about six or seven inches above the lint; each row of poles should be two, three, or four feet asunder, according to the length of the brushwood you are to lay upon them.

The poles ought to be from 10 to 15 feet long, and strong enough to support the brush across the poles; take the longest brushwood you can get, the more branchy the better, very thick, filling up the vacancies with smaller brush, and any of the branches that rise higher than 18 or 20 inches ought to be lopt off to make the brush lie as level as possible; any sort of brush will do except oak, as that tingles the lint.

Your lint must be pulled as soon as the seed is fully formed, which is a few days after it is out of the bloom, before the lint turn yellow.

It must be pulled above the brushwood, and every handful laid upon it as soon as possible; if it is fine weather, leave it four or five hours in that manner: then carry it to a screen near a barn, to put it under a cover in case of rain; there it must be spread four or five days, and always put in the barn at night, or when it appears to rain: the bundles must be opened in the barn, or made hollow, to prevent it from heating.

These operations must be performed until the lint is perfectly dry, and out of danger of heating; taking care all the time to keep the roots as even as possible, and if possible keep it from rain or wet: if you cannot prevent it from being wet, it will be better to leave it on the grass till dry; because when once wet, the putting it under cover before dry will make it turn black; a thing which must be prevented at all events.

If any of the lint upon the border, or through the piece of ground, be coarser than another, it must be separated from the rest. The utmost care must be taken to preserve the lint entire or unbroken; for this reason they beat off the feed with a round mell or bittle.

The most proper ground is summer fallow, or after potatoes or lea; if possible near a wood, to prevent the expense of carrying brush.

As soon as the feed is off, if you intend to water it that season, it must be tied in bundles about as large as you can grasp with your two hands.

The water proper for it, is a very small rivulet or soft spring free of any mineral matter; taking care that no flood or foul water enters your pit; which must be at least five feet deep, about nine or ten broad at the top, and seven or eight at the bottom; the length will depend on the quantity of flax you have to water. A very small stripe of water, when clear, should always be running in and off from your pit when the lint is in it.

The pit ought to be made three or four months before it be used.

You must drive poles about four inches thick, with a hook inclining downwards, in this form 7, all along the sides of the pit, above five feet a-fender. The hooks must be level with, or rather under, the surface of the water. A long pole, the whole length of the pit, must be fixed into these hooks on each side; and crofs poles put under that, to keep the lint under water; but the crofs poles are not used till the lint is put in. You must order it so, that all the lint should be three or four inches under water. You next bring your lint to the sides of the pit; then put your sheaves head to head, causing each to overlap the other about one-third, and take as many of these as make a bundle of two or two and a half feet broad, laying the one above the other, till it is about four or four and a half feet high; then you tie them together in the middle, and at each root end: after this you wrap your bundle in straw, and lay it in the water, putting the thin or broad side undermost, taking care that none of your lint touch the earth; after it is fully pressed under water, put in your crofs poles to keep it under. The bundles ought to lie in the pit a foot separate from each other. This renders it easy to take out; for, if the bundles entangle, they will be too heavy to raise.

The time of watering depends so much upon the weather, and softness or hardness of the water, that it is impossible to fix any certain time. This must be left to the skill of the farmer. If the flax be intended for spinning yarn soft and fit for cambric, it ought to be spread upon short grass for four or five days before you put it into the water; but if for lawns, lace, or thread, it is best to dry it outright. In either case avoid as much as possible to let it get rain; as much rain blanches and wastes out the oil, which is necessary to preserve the strength.

The great property of this flax is to be fine and long. Thick sowing raises all plants fine and slender; and when the ground is very rich, it forces them to a great length. Pulling green prevents that coarse hardness which flax has when let stand till it be full ripe, and gives it the fine silky property. The brushwood, when the flax springs up catches it by the middle, and prevents it from lying down and rotting; infallible consequences of sowing thick upon rich ground. It likewise keeps it straight, moist, and soft at the roots; and by keeping it warm, and shaded from the sun, greatly promotes its length. The keeping it from rain, heating, taking proper care of your water, preserves the colour, and prevents those bars in cloth so much complained of by bleachers.

**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 three under teeth or swords of the break (A, fig. 1. and fig. 1. and 2., 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 floor (fig. 3. and 4.), while with his right hand he struck or thrashed the flax with the scutchers (fig. 5.).

These methods of breaking and fetching 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 fetching 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 of 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 fever 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 slopping in upon the parcel exactly as the flax is struck by the hand-scutcher. This slopping 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 slopping stroke last described, moved by the foot. The treadle is remarkably long, and the scutchers are fixed upon the rim of a fly wheel. The foot-break is also affixed in its motion by a fly. 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 flight 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 Cambric 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, straightens 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 vegetative 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 vegetative 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 untigned. 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 cattle,..." 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 expense would be incurred. In answer to this I shall observe, that I presume any additional expense 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 dipt 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 expense 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 froth."

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 discourses 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, than 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 not 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 pulled, 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 blanching 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 skutter 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 blanching 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 blanching 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 skutter or beater. After the lint has remained a sufficient length of time on the blanching green, it is gathered up a second time into sheaves, (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 overslept or blanched 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 expense." pence by the use of machinery. In proof of this, the flax millers in Scotland, I find, are charging this fee 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 threepence, or one British shilling. In Scotland, where hands are scarce, and the price of labour consequently high, I certainly would not recommend the diffusion 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 each 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 whiteliness 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 fired 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.

Flea. See Pulex, Entomology Index.