THE GROWING OF FLAX.
Homespun linen clothed our ancestors until they could no longer afford to keep the industry going. Labor is high-priced, so Americans buy their linens abroad, where labor is still cheap. The improvement of machinery to handle flax may soon make it a profitable industry in this country. Students of the problem believe the time is coming when we shall make our own table linens.
The growing of flax is an exacting business. The best soil is a heavy, rich, well-drained loam that has borne crops that require clean culture. This means that the weeds are under control. On this soil, finely mellowed, and lightly rolled, the seed is sown broadcast, by hand, and har rowed with a tool of many teeth, to cover. In Europe the field is rolled when the seeds sprout, and when the flax plants are two inches high they get a careful hand-weeding. This work is done by women and boys, who kneel at their work. Sometimes two or three weedings are necessary. The earlier the sowing, the better the fibre, if early frosts do not catch the crop.
"June makes the flax," they say. Then or never the stems lengthen, and the three months of growth end in flowers and seed capsules. When the lower leaves droop, and the pods are turning to yellow, the men go out to pull the flax. Hand fuls are pulled up, laid with even roots on the ground, after the dirt is shaken out, and all weeds discarded. Bundle is laid across bundle to let in air. So the field is harvested, and the dry stems prepared for stacking or retting.
The seeds are "in the dough" when the straw is in best condition to make linen. But even these unripe seeds must be removed. Hand labor again. The worker takes a handful at a time, and draws the heads through a rude stationary comb; the capsules roll off as they are drawn through the teeth.
"Retting" is the process that separates the fibre in the bark of the flax stem from the gummy sub stance and the woody tissues. It may be done chemically in a short time, but that injures the fabric. "Dew-retting" is laying the straw on the grass and letting the rain and dew rot away the parts that support the soft, strong threads. It takes weeks for this method of retting, and the fibres are stained by uneven contact with the earth and sun.
"Pool-retting" is submerging the bundles of straw in natural or made pools of soft water until the fibres are freed by fermentation.
"River-retting" substitutes running water for stagnant. The most perfect place for this process yet found is a stretch of several miles near Cour trai, in Belgium, in the bed of the River Lys. Its
murky waters barely creep along over a bottom of blue clay. Flemish flax-growers draw their heavy loads of straw to the river, pack their crates, and wait their turn to push off these precious loads into the river. Each crate is covered with a protecting layer of rye straw and properly bal lasted with stones so that the flax will all be under water. When the process of retting is complete, a crane raises the crate, the straw is spread on the grass till thoroughly dried, then carried away.
Flax retted in the "Golden Lys" is soft and silky, and finer than any retted elsewhere. Just why, nobody knows with certainty. Pools lined with blue clay do better than others not so lined. It may be that the clay does it.
The dry straw is next broken by passing through corrugated rollers. The result is that bits of woody substance from the stem fall off in the "scutching," or combing, and shaking that follows. Tow is the name given the combings of the scutching tool. Next, the "hackling" does the thorough combing that removes snarls in the fibres, and gets rid of any "shives" (woody particles) the scutching missed. The skeins of flax are ready to be baled and sent to the mills for weaving into cloth, or spinning into yarn.
A single fibre of flax may be over a foot in length. Though one of the finest of fibres, it is stronger than that of any other textile plant. These facts explain the strength and the filmy sheerness we see combined in some handkerchief linens, and their durability.
Nobody can fully appreciate the beauty of the flax flower until he has grown a plot of it. "Blue were her eyes as the fairy flax," wrote the poet of the skipper's little daughter, in "The Wreck of the Hesperus." Our flax flowers are a color we can't forget. We can easily follow the steps by which flax is prepared for spinning, and do by hand, or with tools we make, the retting, breaking, scotching, and heckling.
Choose the longest fibre in the skein of your own making. Stretch it taut. The English word, "line," originally meant "a thread of flax," whose Latin name is Lino n. A dozen words come from this old root: the German lein, French lin, Celtic llin, Swiss linie. The English words lint, liniment, linseed are from the same root. I fancy that lin, a pool or brook, came from the use made of these in the retting of flax.