less the season be uncommonly rainy and tempestuous, it will not lodge or lie flat on the field, nor give any trouble until the period of pulling. This last mentioned operation, which ought to commence as soon as the stalk turns a little yellowish and the branches begin to show some symptoms of decay, is carried on much in the same way with the pulling of hemp-which we have described in the last section. The same is the case with the remaining parts of the process until the flax is sent to the mill for preparing it for the heckle and the market. It cannot be denied that much attention and care are requisite during the whole of that process; but women and children can manage the crop; and their earnings may be so considerable as to give the husbandry in question an additional weight of recommendation, instead of presenting an obstacle or forming an objection against it. Without entering upon the very encouraging calculations given by the friends of this species of husbandry, and which, like all crops recommended by any person however rational and candid, may easily be made to appear on paper highly profitable and valuable, we may state as a fact, that in the Hebrides, and especially in the island of Islay, a Scots acre of flax yields at an average 32 stones of lint, gives employment to 12 individuals for three months before it is worn as linen; and yet, although T 4 these

*

* Vid. Report of the British Consul in Prussia, (Mr Durno) concerning the method of cultivating flax and hemp in Prussia, Russia, and Poland; dated Berlin, 4th Nov. 1798. Farmer's Magazine, vol. i. p. 52, &c.

these 12 are well paid for their work, the farmer clears two guineas per annum by his crop. In short, the objection drawn from the attention and care required by flax, might have some weight in many parts of Britain, where labourers cannot be at a loss for regular employment at stated wages; but in the Hebrides, for reasons frequently mentioned, the objection not only loses its force, but also forms the best argument for the extensive cultivation of flax.

3. Should flax be neglected because it yields no straw, provender, or food?

We have already mentioned that grass seeds might, with great advantage, be sown with flax. If this plan is followed, no objection can be urged against flax more than against barley or any corn crop, further than the 'difference between the straw of the latter and the seed, oil, and tow of the former. The difference, in real value, is, as we have already seen, in favour of flax; but we maintain that the objection is altogether irrelevant and nugatory. The same might be urged against any manufacture or any branch of industry which is not devoured as food by an animal; and it is surely unworthy of any serious refutation. The value which the article carries in the district is the thing to be considered, not whether that value is obtained to-day in oat-cake or barley-meal, or to-morrow in the same commodity bought with the price of flax or yarn. Any crop worth L.32 per acre, at the most moderate computation, and that obtained with the expence of

L. 18. 9s. leaving a profit of L. 13. 11s. to the farmer, besides giving employment to women and children in the winter months, is certainly a good one.

4. Is the difficulty of procuring flax seed so great as to prove a serious obstacle to the cultivation of this plant?

Without taking into account the quantities of seed which might be saved in the different isles, and used with advantage by mutual exchanges amidst the various districts of this extensive region, we may look upon the objection in question as a very insufficient one, when put in competition with the numerous advantages of a flax crop. Twelve or fourteen pecks will sow an acre, which, at the very high price of 7s. per peck, its present average rate in Scotland, amounts to from 86 to 96 shillings, a sum not much greater than what the seeds of any other white crop will cost +. If

the

* Vid. Art. expence and profit, Sect. vii. page 136.

Various political causes have combined to raise the price of flax seed to an enormous height these two or three years past. Previously to our war with Russia and Holland, and to the irritating discussions with the North American States, the price of this article was little more than one half of the sum here stated. It is, however, always to be remembered by the cultivator of flax, that the price which he will obtain for the gross produce of his field of flax, will al ways rise nearly in proportion to the rise of the seed sown,

the value of the crop on the ground is L.32, surely the expence of seed can easily be defrayed, seeing it does not much exceed one-ninth part of the produce; and the argument against the cultivation of flax, drawn from this source, falls to the ground.

5. The scarcity of mills, (or rather the total want of them,) and the unpleasantness and supposed unwholesomeness of the process of preparing flax for market, present powerful obstacles to the culture of this crop.

The society for promoting and encouraging arts and manufactures gives essential aid for building and constructing the machinery of flax mills in the Highlands and isles of Scotland, in consequence of which it is to be hoped that mills will be built in a few years on all the larger isles and as to the unwholesomeness of the various operations connected with flax, previously to its being sold at market, it must be in a great measure fanciful and imaginary. The flax boors of Holland, Flanders, and Italy are as healthy as any portion of their fellow-subjects, and generally remarked for personal cleanliness, as well as for the comfortable accommodations and neatness of their dwellings. In the island of Islay, too, where three times more flax is prepared

for

and that the demand for both will always keep pace with similar embarassments resulting from the political contingencies to which we have now alluded. Dressed flax in 1792 cost L. 38 per ton, in 180S I.. 147!!

for market than in all the Hebrides taken together, we were so far from remarking any appearance of unwholesome employments, or of disagreeable symptoms resulting from flax husbandry, that the persons who carry it on were (in 1808-9) evidently superior to the common run of Hebridians in outward appearance: and they are well known to be greatly superior in industry and wealth.

Having thus stated as briefly as possible the common objections to the extensive culture of flax in the Western Isles, and the answers which appear most reasonable to be made to them, we should proceed, according to the rules prescribed by the Board of Agriculture, to detail the various operations, in their order, which flax undergoes in the Hebrides, from the commencement of the preparation of the soil, for receiving the seed, to the period of heckling and spinning the article for immediate use or for the market. These operations however bear so close a resemblance to those already described in our section upon hemp, that it is superfluous to repeat them here. Nor is there any peculiarity of importance in the treatment of flax in the Hebrides, which deserves notice, as an improvement worthy of imitation in other districts. They are rather backward in this as in many other branches of agriculture, and their general modes of process and operation, if described in a report of this kind, would serve no other end than to warn others from following their example, instead of holding out a model for agricultural practice.

There are some particulars, however, in which the fultivation of hemps differ from that of flax. Hemp

may