DIRECTIONS FOR THE PROPER MANAGEMENT OF THE FLAX CROP. Compiled by the Committee of the Society for the Promotioin and Improvement of the Growth of Flax in Ireland. (Concluded from our last.)

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume II, Issue 88, 3 June 1846, Page 4

DIRECTIONS FOR THE PROPER MANAGEMENT OF THE FLAX CROP. Compiled by the Committee of the Society for the Promotioin and Improvement of the Growth of Flax in Ireland. (Concluded from our last.)

WATERING. This process requires the greatest care and attention. River water is the best. If spring water has to be used, let the pond be filled some weeks, or months if possible, before the flax is put in, that the sun and air may soften the water. That containing iron, or other mineral substances, should never be used. If river water can be had, it need not be let into the pond sooner than the day before the flax is to be steeped. Place the flax in the pool, in one layer, somewhat sloped, and in regular tows, witk the root end uppermost. Cover with moss sodi, or tough old lea sods, laid perfectly close, the sheer of each fitted to the other. Before putting on the sods, a layer of rushes or rag-weeds is recommended to be placed on the flax, especially in new ponds. Thus covered, it never sinks to the bottom, nor is it affected by air or light. A small stream of water allowed to run through a pool has been found to improve its colour. It will be sufficiently steeped, in an average time, from eight to fourteen days, according to the heat of the weather, and the nature of the water. Every grower should learn to know when the flax has had enough of the water, as a few hours too much may injure it. It is, however, much more frequently under-watered than over-watered. The best test is the following : — Try some stalks of average thickness, by breaking the shove, or woody part, in two places, about six or eight inches apart, at the middle of the stalk ; catch the broken bit of wood, and if it will pull freely out, down," wards, for that length, without breaking or tearing the fibre, and with none of the fibre adhering to it, it is ready to take out. Make this trial every six hours, after fermentation subsides, for sometimes the change i« rapid. Never lift the flax roughly from the pool, with forks or grapes, but have it carefully handed out on the bank, by men standing in the v.ater. Spread on the same day it is taken out, unless it be raining heavily ; light ram does little harm. If it cannot be spread, let it be set on end, or separated into small parcels, to prevent it heating in the heap. It is advantageous to let the flax drain tor a few hours, after being taken from the pool, by placing the bundles on their ends, close together, or on the flat, with a slope,

SPREADING. Select, when possible, clean, short, thick pasture ground for this operation ; and mow down, and remove, any weeds that rise above the surface of the sward. Lay the flax evenly on the grass, and spread thin, and very equally. If the directions, under the head of rippling, have been attended to, the handfuls -will come readily asunder, without entangling. Turn it two or three times, while on the grass (with a rod about 8 feet in length, and an inch and a half in diameter), that it may not become -of different shades, by the unequal action of the sun, which is often the case, through inattention to this point. Turn it, when there is a prospect of rain, that the flax may be beaten down a little, and thus prevented from being blown away.

UCFXING. A good test of its being ready to lift is, to rub a few stalks from the top to the bottom ; and, when the wood breaks easily, and separates from the fibre, leaving it sound, it has had enough of the grass. Also, when one stalk in fifty is perceived to form a bou and string, from the fibre contracting and separating from the woody stalk. But the most certain way is, to prove a small quantity with the handbieak, or in a flax mill. In lifting, keep the lengths straight, and the ends even, otherwise great loss will occur in the rolling and scutching. Tie it up in small bundles ; and if not taken soon to be scutched, it will be much improved by being put up in small stacks, loosely built, with stones or brambles in the bottom, to keep it dry, and allow a free circulation of air. Stacks built on pillars would be the best.

DRYING, By fire, is always most pernicious. If properly steeped and grassed, no such drying is necessary ; but, to make it ready for breaking and scutching, exposure to the sun is sufficient. In some districts, it is put to dry on kilns in a damp state, and is absolutely burnt before it is dry, and the rich oily property of the flax is always greatly impairel. On this point, the Society can scarcely speak too strongly, as the flax is either destroyed, or rendered not worth one-half of what it would be, if properly dried.

BREAKING AND SCUTCHING, If done by hand, should be on the Belgian system, which is less wasteful than that practised in Ireland. If by milling, the farmer will do well to select those mills in which the improved machinery has been introduced. The Society would also recommend, that the farmer should endeavour to have his flax scutched by a mill-owner, who pays his men by the day, and not by the stone, even if it should cost him higher in proportion — the system of paying the scutchers by the stone, rendering them more anxious to do a large quantity in the day, than to produce a good yield from the straw.

THE COURTRAI SYSTEM. This is the universal mode in the district from which the finest flax we receive is brought. As soon as pulled, the flax is stooked, without binding it. The handfuls are set up, resting against each other, the root ends spread out, and the top ends joining like the letter A, forming stooks about eight feet long, and a short strap keeping the ends firm. In this way, it will resist wind and rain well, and dry fast. In six or eight days it may be slacked in the field ; the seed to be taken off at leisure, in winter; the flax to be steeped the following May — a system which possesses the advantages of affording the farmer the best season of the year for steeping and grassing, and a time of comparative leisure, when his attention is not called off to the harvesting of other important crops. It has, in many cases, when tried in this country, proved highly successful ; although, in others, it has failed, from want of experience, perhaps, in watering and grassing it. The treatment, in this way, has made the flax, in some cases, woith two or three shillings per stone more, than part of the same crop, steeped green. It is recommended, that trials of this system should be made, in the first instance, on a small scale.

MODE OF USING FLAX SEED FOR FEEDING CATTLE, &C. The seed, given by itself, is too strong and oily to be very wholesome food ; and, besides this, the mucilaginous matter prevents the seed from being bruised by the sinimal's teeth, or dissolved by the gastric juice. It is much better to take the bolls to a mill, where there are edge-stones, without thrashing out the seed, and to have them ground under the stones, set very close, or have the seed cracked in an oat bruiser ; or the small farmer, when no other means are within his reach, may use a metal pot, bedded in clay, and pound the bolls in it, with a hard wood pestle, made to fit the bottom of the pot. About a dozen strokes are sufficient to make the bolls into a fine meal. The chaff and seed, mixed together, afford most excellent nourishing food. It may be given steamed or boiled ; but it is best to steep the mixture from twelve to twenty-four hours in cold water, and then mix it up with lukewarm water, to the consistence of gruel. It will have formed a rich, finely dissolved jell}, easily digested, and of the most wholesome and nutritive quality, excellent to be given cows for producing plenty of milk and butter, for horses, for young cattle, or for pigs ; a pint of linseed, and half- a bushel of the chaff, may be given at a feed.* A farmer, who has once experienced the advantages of saving the seed bolls of his flax crop, will never neglect it again, as they can be turned to advantage one way or other.

TO AVOID EXHAUSTING THE LAND BY GROWING FLAX. It has always been urged against flax culture, that it exhausted the soil ; but this is not necessarily the case. If the seed be saved, and cattle fed upon the bolls, a valuable addition will be made to the manure heap, as, perhaps, the richest manure is produced by this kind of food. The putrescent water from the flax pools should be carefully preserved, and either used as a top-dressing for grass, or mixed with the weeds, and other refuse of the crop, in a heap to ferment. By these means, almost all the matter abstracted from the soil, by the flax crop, would be returned in the shape of manure — the fibre being supplied by the atmosphere alone. Flax Society's Office, Belfast, Ist January, 1845.

* Four quarts of unbruised bolls contain, on an average, a pint of pure seed.