The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1876-04-14
FLAX AS A MIXED CROP.

As fax culture has already attained
considerable Importance as a crop, it will
be well to consider the propriety of cul-
tiyating it for the fibre as well as for
seed. The soil of this and the contigu-
Gus States is well adapted to its growth,
and if some more economical labor saw
ing method could be devised for the
pulling of the plants and the breaking
of the fibre, it might be made a paying
crop for the fibre alone, to say nothing
of the value of the crop for seed. The
general price in this city for clean
scutched tow, properly rotted (retted) of
good strength, is three cents per pound.
Great Britain and France are now
annually importing nearly so, 000pounds
of fax fibre for the purpose of manu-
featuring linens for use in America,
where thousands of tons of flax straw
are annually burned or otherwise de-
stroyed. Ii seems as if the Americans,
with the inventive genius they possess,
could devise the proper machinery for
utilizing the fiax-straw so that it would
become source of profit to both pro-
ducer and manufacturer.
One great advantage flax culture pos
sesses over other crops is its immunity
from the attacks of insects. Chinch
bugs do not modest this crop, and where
it is the case, as it was last season in
eastern Kansas and western Missouri,
and the first crop sown has been de-
stroye6 by the grasshopper, the land can
be re-sowp, and within ninety days
thereafter the farmer can harvest and
market the crop. In ordinary seasons
this can also be done when little else
from among the growing crops can be
marketed. Flax is not an exhaustive
crop; on the contrary, it sends down its
long tap root, like that of the alfalfa and
many other plants, and thus draws nu-
triment from the deeper resources of the
soil. 1t is evident that if we can manu-.
facture cotton goods in competition with
England, as it is now being demonstrat-
ed, we can also manufacture linen
goods froin the flax fibre that is now
allowed to go TO waste, with equally as
much profit, anu with infinitely more
credit TO ourselves as a people claiming
to possess modicum at least of COM
mon sense.-RurGl World
<-
II e.. c 1
is divided by fences into fields of ten
acres each, there are five miles of fences.
If each fence, now, is one rod wide, no
less than ten acres of land are occupied |
by Them This is equal TO six and one
fourth per cent of the farm, and the loss
of the land is equal TO a charge of six |
and one fourth per cent. on the whole |
value of the farm. But nearly every |
fence now in the country is made
nursery of weeds, which stock the whole
farm and make an immense amount of |
labor necessary 10 keep them from
the crops from these weeds,
and if these expenses are added to the
first one. the whole will easily sum up
twenty per cent, or tax of one fifth of
the value of the farm. To remedy this
we would have fewer fences, or We
would clean and seed down the fence
rows to grass or clover. and NOW them
twice a year. Ten acres of clover or
would at least supply farm
With seed, and often tons of hay, every
year. We wonld, in short consider, the
Eence rows as absolutely part of the
neu, and use them as such