XIII.-Flax, its Treatment, Agricultural and Technical. FLAX belongs to the order Lineæ in the Natural System, which is equivalent to the order Pentandria Pentagynia in the Linnæan, a small order containing, according to Lindley,* 3 genera and 90 species, which are met with scattered irregularly over the greater part of the world. Europe, North Africa, and North and South America seem to be its principal stations; individual members, however, are found in India, New Zealand, Australia, and other countries. Its native country appears to be a matter of question amongst botanists, as it is found growing wild in most countries where the physical conditions are suited to its cultivation. The general opinion, however, inclines towards ascribing it to the East. Be that as it may, this disposition to suit itself to such a vast range of soils and climates is of infinite importance to man, as it enables him to avail himself of the advantages resulting from its cultivation to a far greater extent than he otherwise would be able to do. The botanical characters of the order are well marked, and render it easily distinguishable from all others. It possesses 4, or more commonly 5, sepals; the petals are always equal in number with the sepals; the stamens are also equal in number, and alternate with them; it has 5 stigmas and an ovarium with 10 divisions, or rather 5 perfect cells, which are separated again by an imperfect partition, extending from its outer wall. In each of these cells is found a single seed, of a flattened oval shape, and of a more or less dark brown colour-mucilaginous to the taste, and containing a large proportion of a brownish yellow oil, known as linseed oil. This oil is readily obtained by pressure from the seed, the residuum being the well-known feeding substance termed linseed cake. The members of this order, generally, are remarkable for the tenacity of their fibres, the elegance of their shapes, the beauty of their flowers, which are blue, red, or white,† and the emollient and demulcent properties of their seeds. All are harmless, some possessing slight medicinal action, in others even this is absent. Of these we may cite the Linum Catharticum, a very common weed, whose leaves contain properties of a purgative character, and the L. selaginoides, which is accounted in South America of great use, both as a mild aperient and as a tonic. Probably these * Vegetable Kingdom, p. 485. †M. Brogniart considers that white varieties often exhibit a marked difference in the colouring of the leaves, and suggests that a modification may also exist in the tissues of the stems. M. L. Vilmorin is at present experimenting upon the cultivation of white varieties of flax. So far, he considers the fibre to be of a coarser quality.-Annales de l'Agriculture Française. Fev. 1853. properties pervade the whole order, but have not been remarked in the cultivated flax. Several of its members are plentifully met with in this country as weeds: the Linum Catharticum is very common on poor lands; the L. perenne (or Siberian flax), usually on chalk formations; the L. usitatissimum on cultivated soils; and more rarely the L. angustifolium, which is met with on sandy and barren pastures, principally near the sea; while the Radiola is well known to all botanists as being met with in moist and boggy places. * Although there are many kinds of flax known to botanists as possessing fibres suitable for textile purposes, the L. usitatissimum appears to be the only one which has been employed in cultivation. Of this Dr. Lindley tells us there are two very different forms, namely,-1. The L. humile or crepitans (the Springlein or Klanglein of the Germans), a plant somewhat shorter and more inclined to branch than the other, and possessing larger capsules, twice as long as the calyx, which burst with considerable elasticity when ripe; its seeds, too, are both larger and of a paler colour. 2. The L. usitatissimum, or true winter flax (Winterlein of the Germans), which has smaller capsules, scarcely longer than the calyx, not bursting with elasticity, but firmly retaining their seeds, which are of a dark brown colour. These distinctions do not seem to be very well understood in this country, though they certainly are of some practical importance. In the market we frequently meet with this full-bodied lightcoloured seed, and it is generally considered to be the produce of flax harvested before the straw was quite ripe; whereas it is the mature produce of a different variety, suitable for spring sowing, and probably having a more rapid growth than the L. usitatissimum or winter flax. In the foreign department of the Exhibition in 1851 samples of both were seen in several places. In Austria and North Europe, where the winters are severe and the snow lies too long on the ground to admit of early tillage in the spring, the Winterlein is extensively used and sown in the autumn; the summer season being too short and too hot to admit of the successful cultivation of the Springlein. With us the custom is to sow in the spring, though no doubt in some of our northern districts, where the ground cannot be got ready sufficiently early in the spring, flax could be advantageously cultivated if sown in the previous autumn. The important services which flax has rendered to man has secured for it a record from the earliest times. In the Bible we find frequent mention made of it both as flax and in its manu Encyclop. of Agric.-Blackie and Co. factured state as linen; and on various Egyptian monuments the plant and the preparation of its fibres are represented. In the Book of Exodus it is noted as one of the principal crops grown in Egypt. Being one of the chief sources whence the Egyptians derived articles of comfort and luxury, it was selected by the Almighty for destruction when he sent the plague of hail as a judgment on that people. From the Book of Joshuat we find that flax was cultivated in Palestine, when it is stated that Rahab used flax to hide the spies sent by Joshua to examine Jericho. In the history of Samson, also, reference is made to flax as being a well-known crop. Many allusions are made to it in its prepared and manufactured state, both in the Old and in the New Testaments,§ all of which refer to the same plant we now term flax, and which is the same as that known by the Hebrew name Pishtah," and by the Greek name “Linon.” 66 66 We have also ample records of its cultivation in the days of Greece and Rome. Columella || speaks of it as a hurtful crop, which exhausts the land, and which he says "should not be grown unless there is reason to expect a very great crop, and one is tempted by a very great price." Virgil ¶ joins it with oats and poppies, and says "that all these exhaust the soil." Palladius** expresses the same opinion. Pliny,†† while condemning it as a crop, moralizes over it and asks, what greater miracle than that there should be a plant which makes Egypt approach nearer to Italy; that there should grow from so small a seed, and upon so slender and short a stalk, that which, as it were, carries the globe itself to and fro." By this we must infer that its use both in the shape of ropes and sailcloth was well known; and in the succeeding chapters we are informed that many nations used it when woven into linen as wearing apparel. Pliny is the only author who enters minutely into the details, both of its cultivation and subsequent preparation. He speaks chiefly of spring-sown flax. According to the other authors flax was sown usually in the autumn, in the months of October and November, when 8 modii‡‡ of seed were sown upon the jugerum, whereas 10 were required for the spring sown, the land having been previously manured. The harvesting and § Prov. xxxi., v. 13-19; Is. xix., v. 9; 1 Sam. ii., Jer. xiii., v. 1; 1 Kings, X., v. 28; 2 Chron. i., v. 16; v. 5-9, and other places. Columella, lib. ii., cap. x. Judges xv., v. 14. v. 18; 2 Sam. vi., v. 14; Ezek. xiv., v. 3; Hos. ii., Georg., lib. i., v. 77. "Urit enim lini campum seges, urit avenæ." ** Palladius, lib. xi., cap. ii. + Pliny, Nat. Hist., lib. xix, proæm. The Roman modus was about the same as the English peck. The jugerum was equal to 618 of an acre. steeping appear to have been carried on much the same as in later times; the scutching was performed by beating the steeped straw upon a stone with a peculiar mallet, and then drawing it through iron heckles. The tow was of little use except as wicks for candles. The "boon," or "shove," was used as fuel, and the cleaned fibre was bleached by being watered and exposed in the ordinary manner. He describes Spanish flax as being of very fine quality; and mentions another sort, which was cultivated in Campania, whose fibres were so fine and so tough that nets were made of them to entangle wild boars, and so hard as to resist even the stroke of a sword:-"I have seen," he says, "these snares of such fineness as to pass with the ropes at the upper and under side through the ring of a man's finger; one man being able to carry as many of them as would encircle the hunting ground. Nor is this the most extraordinary part, for each strand of them consisted of 150 threads." He relates also that, in the temple of Minerva in Rhodes, the breastplate of Amasis, a King of Egypt, was found made of this net, each strand consisting of 365 threads. This was taken by the Consul Mutianus to Rome, where it was exhibited at the time Pliny wrote, as a specimen both of fineness and strength of fibre, and also of skill in spinning and twisting yarn. Certainly modern times have nothing to compare with it. The absence of all agricultural records after the fall of the Roman Empire leaves a blank in our history until towards the end of the 12th century, when we gather, from papers of that period, that flax was in considerable cultivation in this country. As the country became more settled, and civilization advanced, the use of linen became more general, and we find that, in 1532 (Hen. VIII.), an Act of Parliament was passed requiring that every person occupying land fit for tillage should, for each quantity of 60 acres, sow at least 1 rood of it in flax each year. This quantity was increased to an acre in 1562 (Elizabeth) under pain of a penalty. In 1691 (William and Mary), with a view to encourage its cultivation as much as possible, an Act was passed fixing the tithe on flax at only 4s. per acre. In 1713 (Anne 12, cap. 16) a bounty of 1d. per ell was allowed on the exportation of home-made sailcloth; and in 1806 (George III. 46, cap. 46) a bounty was offered for the importation of flax and hemp from the American Colonies. These references tend to show that flax has always occupied the attention of different countries, and in our own they would lead us to infer that, although probably the proportion grown formerly was superior to that of late years, still the demand was always greater than the supply. It has been said by the advocates of flax growing, that whereas nine-tenths of the inhabitants |