Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1881-10-14

the last twenty-five years or more-he would
miss some features of the summer landscape
which he used to know and which added not
a little to its variety and picturesqueness.
But this is only another way Of saying that
some characteristic crops once well known
here are now neglected or obsolete. Without
a very long memory, / can recall three crops
that have become "obsolete" in the region Of
country from which write, and which you
cannot now discover growing in any part of
large territory in which two of them at least
were once familiar OF course the mere dis
use of a crop, which after certain period is
brought into cultivation again, is common
enough. Even wheat is such a crop in
some localities. Somewhere between 1910
and 1916 it was almost driven out of New
York and New England, not only because in
sect enemies prevented its successful cultiva-
ton, but because the Genesee valley wheat
and the crops still further west sent us over
the Erie Canal a better and cheaper barrel Of
flour than we could produce ourselves. To-
bacco, broom-corn, barley, sorghum and
many other crops also are not of the kind to
which the term "obsolete" can be applied, for
such crops as these recur again, and most of
them are never likely to go permanently out
of fashion. The wheat crop, after twenty
years disuse, began to appear again few
years ago in the counties and states eastward
which II had formerly deserted, and would be
still more frequently seen there II farmers
were as much alive to its value per sc, as
well as in the hasty return to grass which it
makes possible, as they should be.
A crop, however, which is probably obso-
lcte in the fullest sense is the curious crop of
teasels. 1t used to be common in the neigh
borhood from which l write, when l was
boy, and in many other places; but no one
sees it here now or has seen it for many
years. The cause of its abandonment was
foreign competition, the crop being raised in
Belgium, France and other European coun-
tries at ruinously low prices The only To-
cality in fact in which teasels are now raised
in this country, SO far us l know, is at
Skaneatales, in Onondaga county, in this
state. Certain conditions Of the climate near
the central New York lakes, and perhaps the
nature of the soil there, have made it so easy
to grow the plant that 1t is now the place
where the largest part of the wooden manu-
facturers of the country get their supply of
these burrs A good many attempts have
been made by inventors to initiate the teasel
by some device made of wire or curved flexi-
BILE points Of metal, but the non-elasticity of
any such fixture has been fatal to everything
first used by hand in dressing cloth, and were
attached to small frames, the teaseler, or OPP
orator, holding one of these in each hand and
drawing them across the cloth. They are
now split into halves or quarters and fixed in
cylindrical frames which revolve in the ma.
chine by which they are operated, the cloth
to be dressed passing underneath them. A
single stalk of the teasel plant will yield from
twenty to fifty merchantable teasels
Woad, which is plant belonging to the
mustard family, is another crop which used
to be raised somewhat more than it is now.
and was also sold to the manufacturers of
cloth. 1t is still found to be a necessity in
the dyeing-room. Its culture was always
limited territorialy, and is now, think, con-
fined chiefly to a few towns in Connecticut.
1t is a biennial, growing from two to four
feet high. Before the introduction of indigo
the consumption of woad was very great, and
its color even now is considered more per-
manent than indigo. There are, however,
many substitutes for it, or for the part it now
chiefly performs. 1t is used now to create a
fermentation in the indigo dye, somewhat of
the nature of that which is produced by fer
menting malt in making ale or beer. This
fermentation acts chemically on the indigo,
and, by de-oxidizing it enables the indigo to
impart fast color. Carrots and turnip tops,
and even tobacco leaves and the sprouts
which grow up after the tobacco plants have
been cut, are made to do this same service,
as also wheat and rye bran are. One farmer
near Rockville, Conn, who still cultivates
this crop, has grown it for twenty years, and
this mans produce of woad is sufficient to
supply all the factories in that immediate re-
gion, and it is a rlace where manufactures
| abound An avnarianna6 urouvar pf xyood
can make it very profitable, as it will bring as
much per acre as the best tobacco crops.
1t may seem, perhaps, like piece of false
nomenclature to number flax with the obso-
lete crops but in the largest and oldest parts
of the country it is the one to be most con-
| spcuously noticed for its absence. In the
| United States and Canada there are now only
about four hundred thousand acres of it cul-
| tivated; and it is only in some parts of Ohio,
| Michigan, Illinois and northern New York
that it can be said to be commonly seen. In
all New England and in the middle States it
| long ago practically disappeared and moth
| ing which has ever left the ordinary farm is
so distinctly connected with the change which
has come over the modes and habits of coun-
try living. Flax is one of the crops that fol-
lowed the European emigrants to this country
very soon after it began to be settled. Only
nine years after the Pilgrims landed on
| Plymouth Rock the Colonial government of
Massachusetts ordered it to be introduced in
to that colony, and it went to Virginia not
much later. 1t was one of the necessities
with all the new settlers, who depended ON it
for the lint to make the staple cloth with
| which their families were clothed. Nor was
its use by any means confined to this one
purpose. Up to 1880, perhaps, almost every
thriving New England farmer cultivated q
small piece of land in flax every summer, and
dressed 1t by hand in the barn in the dry,
cold days of winter, and the family manufac,
tured it into variety of articles for domestic
use. Indeed, good many old-style farmers
did not think they could get along without
their tow-frock and trousers, nor that any.
thing was so fit for meal bags as homemade
tow-linen. Raising flax as it used to be dont
was no child's play. Nor do modern meth
DDS, if the fibre is to be respected, lessen the
work. 1t involves the hardest kind of labo
at every step in the process; and pulling il
by hand would make one wish for Charlie.
Dudley Warmers suggested cast-iron back
with hinge in it. AS fast as flax was pulled
it was put into bundles to dry 1t was ther
laid out on neighboring grassy plot, whert
it was exposed for many days to rains anC
dews. The seed is obtained by process call
ed ripping by which handful of stalks ar,
drawn through set of iron teeth standing II
a row half an inch apart at the top and
quarter of an inch at the bottom. -Four mer
with two of the ripping combs, it is said
would get out the seed of an acre of fax in
day. Machinery, however, finally did gooC
deal of the work. Flax had not only to be
retted and dried, but it was afterward broken
which cracked the straw and effected tn,
separation of the brittle woody portion from
the filaments when afterward beaten by
broad fiat blade of wood in the operation o
scratching The process of hatchelling O
cording is thus described AS performed b,
hand, a wisp of flax held in the middle anC
well spread out is thrown so as to draw on
end of it over a set of sharp steel teeth whicl