and endeavour to introduce upon their estates, in this branch, as well as in many others, that subdivision of labour without which no country can make any great progress in agricultural improvements. We conclude our remarks upon hemp, by once more urging Hebridian proprietors to its cultivation. They have every inducement. Land is low rented, and, generally speaking, well adapted to this kind of crop. Calcareous and saline manures can be easily procured. The climate an wers admirably. Watering ponds can be easily constructed in every field. There are abundance of people whose industry, having at present no definite object, would be most advantageously for themselves and for their country applied to the different processes which hemp requires from the moment of pulling till it is used in the loom or in cordage. Many thousand pounds would annually be spared to the Hebrides, and many lives saved by their supplying themselves with this material, for cables, ropes, netting, and sail cloth. Navigation and trade would proportionably advance. Large sums would be drawn by the farmers for their produce, and in bounties from government; and the government itself would ultimately be a great gainer by the strength, wealth, and security which would result from the prosperity of one of the most interesting districts of our empire *. SECTION Should these remarks, and the recommendation for cultivating hemp in the Hebrides, appear unwarrantable to any reader, and inconsistent with the opinions of respectable and intelligent SECTION XIX.-FLAX. VIRGIL and COLUMELLA's anathemas against lint or flax seem to follow this crop in the Hebrides as they T2 did intelligent men who have written reports of other districts of Great Britain, we can only say, that what is advanced has met with the approbation of the most skilful agriculturists in the Hebrides. It is true, we find such sentiments as the following in the report of a county (Devon) which, both by soil and climate, we would fancy might cultivate hemp to great advantage. "The culture of hemp is not known; it has been attempted at South Pool, but (fortunately) for want of conveniencies for preparing it for market, has been discontinued (a)". But as no reason is assigned for what the author deems so fortunate, and as his whole section upon hemp consists of the above words only, we do not hesitate to declare, that however fortunate the want of the conveniencies alluded to may be deemed in Devonshire, that want is a great misfortune in the Hebrides. * Urit enim lini campum seges, i. e. Flax consumes the substance of a field.-Geor. i. l. 77. Lini semen, nisi magnus est ejus in eâ regione quam colis proventus, et pretium proritat, serendum non est; agris enim praecipue noxium est, i. e. Flax must not be sown unless it bring great increase and a high price, seeing it is exextremely hurtful to the soil.-Colum. lib. ii. cap. x. (e) Vid. Rep. of Devon, p. 206. did in Italy. Very little is cultivated, excepting in Islay, further than in trifling detached spots for family use; and that little is very often injudiciouly managed. Yet the advantages derivable from the extensive cultivation of flax are so palpable and numerous, that the traveller cannot easily account for the disproportion between the quantities of less profitable crops and those of lint, which he so often beholds; and his wonder will be converted into regret, when he considers the situation of the district under our immediate review. Upon that situation, so particularly enjoining the raising of flax, and giving employment to women and children in winter, we shall not now enlarge. It is sufficiently well known and understood by every one in the least acquainted with these islands. Nor is it necessary to dwell upon the great intrinsic value of a lint crop per acre, or upon the incalculable profits which countries, worse adapted to it than ours, have derived from it for ages, and the laudable skill, industry, and perseverance with which they still carry it on. So completely aware is our government of all these circumstances, and so convinced at the same time by melancholy experience, of our tardiness in following the example of neighbouring nations in the flax husbandry and manufacture, that it has from time to time bestowed large bounties*, and afforded • The Board of Trustees for encouraging fisheries and manufactures gives a premium of one pound Sterling the are for all ground occupied by flax, provided the acre is ascertained to produce fifteen stones of clean lint. An average crop is 30 or 32 stones per acre. afforded every species of encouragement for the prosecution of it. The common arguments against the propriety of extending the cultivation of flax in the Hebrides are the following: viz. 1. Flax is said to exhaust and impoverish the soil in an extraordinary degree. 2. This crop requires so much attention and labour to prepare it for use, or for the market, that common farmers cannot raise it without neglecting other and more essential braches of husbandry. 3. In Highland or Hebridian districts, a crop which yields no straw, fodder, or food, cannot be considered as eligible or judicious. 4. Flax seed is of late years extravagantly dear, and would drain those districts of more money than they can well afford to lay out. 5. The want of mills finishes and completes the inconveniency of flax husbandry, which is besides very disagreeable and u nwholesome to all persons concerned in it. We shall briefly advert to all these arguments, convinced as we are that they really have had much infiuence upon the agriculture of the Hebrides for many years past. 1. Does flax exhaust and impoverish the soil? It certainly, like all white crops that ripen their seeds, and grow in long stalks, without broad leaves to draw nourishment from the atmosphere, requires more nourishment from the soil than the generality of green crops, or such as are usually called meliorating plants. But if pulled before the seeds ripen, and before the stalks decay, which ought always to be done, flax does not exhaust the field on which it is cultivated more than a crop of barley, oats, or rye. The best proof of this fact is the excellent crops of sown grasses, of potatoes, turnips, or other green crops, which we find to grow immediately after flax. If this crop is kept clean, it leaves the soil in as good order as any white crop whatever, (hemp perhaps excepted on strong deep soils); and, therefore, upon a fair trial in any soil of tolerable quality, neither too dry nor too moist, the argument now urged against this plant will prove groundless and futile. A cursory glance at the islands of Islay and Lismore will confirm this observation. 2. Does flax require so much care and attention as to make its cultivation more burdensome than profitable to the tenant? If the land is free, sandy, light, or a loose loam, preparation for flax is very simple and easy. This description of soil is very frequent in the Hebrides. Pulverization, even in the completest degree, (and certainly flax requires it,) is perfectly accomplished by two ploughings and harrowings of such land. The flax seed is then sown, towards the middle or end of April, and in about three weeks afterwards, or as soon as the plants are two or three inches high above ground, women and children are employed to weed it. If this is properly executed, and it may, at the expence in the Hebrides of about a guinea per acre, no further trouble need be taken for three months. It is seldom that poles with strings drawn tight between them are necessary for supporting the head of the flax. Un less |