The Express.
London, England, 1864-09-09 00:00:00

B‘ITAWNIA

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LONDON, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 9.

BEPORZ the late agricultural meetings in Ire-
land, some of our manufacturers were becoming
anxious to know the effect of the dry season on the
flax crop in Ireland. Now we have heard as much
as can yet he ascertained. To the friends of Ire-
land few subjects can be of deeper interest than
the prosperity of the flax crop ; for the increase in
the growth of the plant, since the cotton famine,
and the unparalleled demand for linseed this season
in consequence of the failure of cattle food, render
flax-growing a resource of the utmost importance
to the small farmers whose fortunes had so sadly de-
clined during the recent rainy years. A dozen years
ago there were in Ireland under 100,000 acres under
flax cultivation. The growers were then firmly per-
suaded that the seed could not he saved without
spoiling the fibre ; so, while English farmers were
growing flax for the seed, the Irish were throwing
away the seed for the sake of the fibre, and paying
300,0001. a-year for Riga seed, which would be
profusely adulterated with weeds. These weeds
exhausted the soil, and spoiled the crop by crowd-
ing up the lower part of the stalks. These lest
ten years have seen a great change. We are told
on the authority of the annual returns of the
Registrar-General that above 300,000 acres are
under flax this year, and the value of the seed
alone, per acre, is declared to be from 81. to 101.
per acre, or for the whole from 2,400,0001. to
3,000,0001. It is not surprising that a good deal
of anxiety should be felt as to the effect of the late
drought on the growth and preparation of the crop.
At the meeting of the Irish Agricultural Society
at Sligo, last week, the Lord-Lieutenant of the
county, Colonel KNOX Goss, said that one acre of
flax would pay the rent of the small farmer,
leaving him as free about the rest of his crops as
if he were on his own land. Any risk to such •
product may well be dreaded ; and travellers in
Ulster have been looking about them, whenever
the smell of the " retting " hung about the road.
The manufacturers, too, have been on the watch,
and the recent rains must have been a welcome
relief to all parties.
The last ten years have introduced a great im-
provement in the methods of treating the produce,
so as to shorten the dangerous season of steeping.
to quicken and cheapen the process of separating
the fibre, to save the seed without spoiling the
lax, and to promote the division of labour which
was sure to be adopted sooner or later. San-
guine people have not been always right in sup-
posing that the Belgian and other foreign methods
had only to be made known in Ireland to secure a
success as regular and thorough as in any other
country. Not only is the climate different in each
country, but the soil, and—a most important ele-
ment in this case—the water. There has, how-
ever, been instruction from abroad delivered in
Ireland ; and the Agricultural Societies and exhi-
bitions of machinery and methods have, directly
or indirectly, brought much new knowledge within
the reach of not only enterprising farmers, but the
peasantry themselves. The Irish peasant is acute
enough ; and, however wedded he may be to
his own and his father's way of getting his
flax to market, there must be a point at which he
will open his eyes and his mind to the profit of
improved method, if he cares nothing about the
benefit of science in the case. In Ulster small
cultivators who were always finding themselves
subject to accidents by the slightest change in the
quality of the water, and by perverseness of
`weather, which might keep their crop lying about
for weeks, instead of being finished off in a few
days, could not but see the advantage of having
their flax treated in vats with water of the best
quality, and by an apparatus which did the work
in a fixed and very short time ; and so with the
scutching, when their own best flax, beetled and
dressed at home, brought one-third less in the
market than the sort they had sold to the
mill as inferior. Not only in Ulster, but in the
West and South, wherever acutching mills have
been set up, the people round cannot but perceive
the benefit of all bringing their produce there,
rather than each trying the slow and imperfect old
method at home. As the days of the spinning-
wheel and the cottage loom are over, and
the linen manufacture is expanding to fill
up the gap made by the reduction of the
cotton, it requires less wit than Irishmen have to
understand that they must keep up with the
times if they desire to mend their fortunes. If
they will listen to what their wisest and kindest
neighbours are saying, at public meetings, in
lectures, and in print, they will find that a pro-
spect lies before them fairer than would be a pro-
mise of half a century of sound and plentiful pota-
toes, or even of American wages or military
bounties. Years ago, before there was any
apprehension about cotton supply, they were
told that if Irish cultivators would grow 500,000
acres of flax the manufacturers would buy it all,
getting only some particular qualities from abroad ;
and now, after years of deficient cotton supply,
Ireland grows only a little more than 300,000.
There is plenty of room for expansion yet—plenty
of money to be made by flax and linseed growing.
And from year to year the grower may learn how
to improve his profits, as now in the case of dis-