The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1889-01-23
FLAX CULTURE.
RAISING AN IMPORTANT PLANT
IN IRELAND.
Flowing and SeedinG-Great Labor
and Care Required in Wedding
The Steep Pond and
the Scutch Mill.

worked in the spring to O mold with
harrowe. usually crosswise and dag
onally; but the soil is only pulverized
on top, as, curious!y, the flax, which
grows as far from the surface into the
ground as it does out of it, with
moderate soil resistance to a downward
growth, seems 10 possess tendency of
increase in length of stock. The seed
is sown in April broadcast, from pouch
made by tying together two corners of a
linen sheet. This is slung over the
right shoulder, the left arm holding tho
seed-pouch open-precisely rs our own
good fathers used to sow wheat, oats
and barley from the striped, brown, two
bushel bag. The entire skill required
in fax-sowing is in securing uniform
! distribution Of the seed and a sufficiently
liberal amount; for those two essentials
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 perhaps his own fam
| lily could give him; but now that
"weeding-time" has arrived. additional
labor must be hired. 1t comes trooping
down from the mountain districts in the
form of buxom, shaprly Irish lasses.
Amazons 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 vigor-
Gus evolutions 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 summe". The mountain
eers engage from two to three months;
the village girls, by the dsy or week.
Both do mems labor, or more, and re-
ceive about one shilling per day. Their
food is of the meagelest and plainest
character. Oaten bread, made from
coarse oatmeal, with only salt and water
added, occasionally portion of the
commonest vegetables, with little of
the vilest purchasable tea, and, for q
great luxury, 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
cleaning as new frost, compilations that
rival tints of the rose, and forms of
lovely symmetry.
The wedding of fax in Ireland neces-
states great labor and care. The foreign
seed used seems to engender o multipli-
city of weeds. A 2U.acre field would
require about 200 days OF one hand for
thorough work, or ten days per single
acre. When the fax is about six inches
high, wedding is begun, damp days be-
ing chosen, so that the weeds may be
more easily extracted, and the tender
shoots of fax bruised as little as posi-.
BILE. In Belgium the weeders, with
coarse cloths around their knees. creep
along on all-fours and among the thou.
sands that may be seen in days journey,
not one is out of this groveling position.
But the Irish wceders do their work
barefooted and crouchcd in half-sitting
posture. A singular fact about this
work is that it is all done toward the
wind. This is in order that the breezes
may assist in lifting the bent or bruised
shoots again, and curious belief pre-
walls that this unavoidable treading and
breaking OF the flax in Its early period of
growth, has stimulating effect upon the
crop.
The Irish steep. pond is the same rude
affair that it was centuries ago. Or
dinarily hole or excavation of from
to S feet in depth, 3 to 10 yards wide,
and 10 to l5 yards long, it will be found
in some meadow swail or hillside hol-
low, where it is allowed to fill with the
surface water. or where the water from
some tiny stream may be admitted for
the water rsed in tlax-steeping must he
soft, or at least free from lime and iron.
Flax -sheaves are laid in the Irish steep
pond butt to band, weighed down
with sod and stone, and allowed
to remain from eight ten days. Millions
of dollars have been wasted in efforts to
steep flax artificially in vats; but nature
alone can properly attend to that. The
steep water, invaluable for enriching
soils, hut wholly wasted here, can be
used but once. From it the sheaves are
carted to the "spread- ground" of graz
ing or mown-meadow land. Here the
rush bands are removed and dried, and
the now sticky, dirty fax, held on the
left arm, and spread from lett to right,
the loaded rarts following lust outside
the rows. When the stepped flax is thus
drying, whole fax regions are given the
appearance Of being laid with mammoth
carpctiug in gray brown rows woven
upon ground of emerald green. Wet
weather endanger> ruinous secondary
fermentation: but ''drying wind"
gives superb fiber. The fax is now
'lifted;' with the same rush bands tied
again into "beats' or sheaves; and is
then ''stooked" and ''capped" precisely
as grain is "shockcdn in American
fields. 1t is allowed to stand in the
"stook" few days for further "curing"
and is finally stored in the cabin loft:
stacked with wonderful precision and
symmetry: or cnrted direct to the roar
ing ''scutch mill"
1t is an interesting place around a
scutch mill. One will find from 30O to
400 diminutive fax-stacks with prettily
thatched roofs. The clatter and rush.
with the flying shives, remind one of
the pleasant old.fashioned American
"threshing time " while here and there,
crowding the road. ranged between the
stacks, or over.iowing into near pad
docks, are great numbers of carts,
dragged here by ragged donkcys or rag
gcred humans, awaiting their turn" at
the mill. or room for storing and stack
ing their loads. The mill removes from
the flax the roots, the branches and
withcred bolls-as the valuable seed is
all lost in Ireland the woody heart and
the finty outer sheath. Twenty-four
cents per stone fourteen pounds) of
= r.. H.