Morning journal and courier., 1888-12-15

1 that case he would not be teetotaler, ,as then he could not practice that virtue.
 FLAX RAISING IN IRELAND. Crude Methods of Gathering the Crop -HuxOm HarvesteHs-Magnftu of the Industry.
 LIsBURN, Ireland, Dec. 3. To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER: In six of the thirteen counties in which | have so far experienced the delights of jour ] neying afoot in Ireland, flax is an important agricultural product. The shamrock is an Irish emblem of the deepest sentiment; and ! it is difficult for us who are not Irish to grasp the immeasurab1e tenderness with which the delicate trefoil is regarded But 8 sssteok" of held-Aax, or better1a spray or I cluster of the beautiful fax-bells in bloom, 1 might probably have great significance as a national industrial token. It has been both a pleasing and painful thing to wander among the big and little farms and study the methods of the tensntry in growing and
 harvesting flax and in preparing 1t for the
 market; pleasing, for the countless interest ing experiences among a tender hearted, lowly folk; painful, to become so bitterly conscious that the barbarous landlord sys- tenn, in it's apparently endless continuance and increasing seventies, has forced the Irish farmer of any product into the condi- tion of a sodden, starved slave, whose high- est possibilities are all lost through the des- psrate scourge of grabbing and grubbing for mere rent money and existence; and that from this cause and the pitiably ignorant methods resultant, there is lost to Ireland that which, were her people landowners, free and consequently ambitious and emula- tive, could alone make her one of the rich est spots for her area in the world. A very concise statement of fact will Illustrate this.
 In 1887 the total production of flax in Ire- land amounted to but sixteen thousand tons,
 valued at two hundred and fifty dollars per ton, or four million dollars. Irish linen
 manufacturers required, and were compelled
 to import from the continent, seventeen
 thousand tons in excess of the supply.
 Here was loss to the Irish farmers in few
 counties of four million two hundred and
 fifty thousand dollars. But this Is as noth-
 ing. Indisputable scientific agricultural and
 industrial data prove that, exclusive of this
 
 matter of flax alone-from want of develop
 ment of the flax produeible five hundred
 thousand acrss in twenty-oRe unhaxed coun-
 ties, and neglect and ignorance in flax eul-
 ture-of fully one hundred million dollars.
 And this enormous sum is only one of many
 items of cost to this deeply wronged land
 from the eoercive government" it has for
 centuries endured from that great power on
 whose happy possessions "the sun never
 sets."
 Without seeing, it is impossible for an
 American to imagine the diminutivenes of
 the Irish farmers holding, or the tiny fields in which all Ireland's flax is produced. Tenants holdings are oftener less than five acres than more than ten. One of twenty is a vast farm indeed, and it's possessor, in the peasants mind, must be very rich and for- tunate man; for these twenty acres cost an annual rental of one hundred dollars. So that instead of finding flax fields of sufi- cient ample area to permit judicious expen- allure of material and labor, it is unusual to see one comprising half dozen acres. h. deed out of one hundred you might come upon one-fourth of that number would not cover g whole acre of ground. But little or big, the Irish farmer buys Belgian or Rus
 
 acre, on credit at the village store, thus mortgaging his insignificant crop in advance. The land is ploughed in the fall. light or loamy soils being preferred, and is worked l in the spring to a mold with harrows, usual 1 ly cross-wise and diagonally; but the soil is only pulverized on top, as, curiously, the flax, which grows as far from the surface into the ground as it does out of it, with a moderate soil resistance to downward growth, seems to possess tendency of in crease in length of stalk. The seed is sown | in April broadcast, from pouch made by l tying together two corners of linen sheet. This Is slung over the right shoulder, the l left arm holding the seed pouch open-pre cisely as our own good fathers used to SOW wheat, oats and barley from the striped, brown, two bushel bag. The entire skill re- quired in hax-sowing is in securing uni form distribution of the seed, and a sufh- cientIy liberal amount for those two essen- tials give even length of stalk and least branching at the top, largely increasing the value to both the spinner and the farmer. To this point the tenant has required no more help than perhas his own family could give him; but now that "weeding-time" has arrived additional labor must be hired. It comes trooping down from the mountain dis tricts in the form of buxom, shapely Irish 1 lasses. Amszons in frame and strength, they are beings of brave and sunny mood, who can exist on less food, work harder in the field for twelve hours of every day, and dance longer and with more vigorous evolu- tions at night, than any other women or men
 that live. Nor are these picturesque folk all. Women and girls from near villages also hire to the Irish farmer in summer. The noun ! taineers engage for from two to three months; the village girls by the day or week Both do mems labor, or more, and receive about l one shilling per day. Their food is of the meagerest and plainest character. Oaten IR salt and water added, occasionally portion of the commonest vegetables, with little of the vilest purchasable tea, and, for a great luxury, a drop of milk, are all. They scarcely know the taste of butter, meat or fowl And yet these girls have eyes liquid with light, teeth white and gleaming as new | frost, complexions that rival tints of the | rose and forms of lovely symmetry. Brave, grand toilers, these Irish girls; splendid in goodness and truth; royal in endless pa | tienoe; noble in endless virtue Of such as | these true poets should sing.
 l The wedding of flax in Ireland neeessitates great labor and care. The foreign seed used seems to engender multiplicity of weeds. l A twenty acre field would require about two I hundred days of one hand for thorough work, or ten days per single acre. When the | Hax is about six inches high wedding is be- gun, damp days being chosen so that the weeds may be the more easily extracted and | the tender shoots of flax bruised as little as | possible. In Belgium the weeders, with l coarse cloths around their knees, creep along | on all fours, and among the thousands thas may be seen in days journey not one is out of this groveling position. But the Irish weeders do their work bare.footed and crouched in 8 half sitting posture; so that | the roadside passer often gets 8 glimpse of 1 pretty form and face, we'll as 8 bit of true Irish blaokguarding if he stare too long at
 some honest mountain girl. A singular fact