Markets.
There are no special markets for flax. As a rule, farmers do not hold their crop long after threshing. They sell the seed to the local elevator. A few ship direct to the factories. The great bulk of the straw is burned. The grain companies buy flax seed as they do other grain, and sell to the linseed mills according to the standard grade and price. The seed often is transferred directly to the consumer ; at other times it is stored in terminal elevators. The average farm price of flax for the past ten years is $1.094 per bushel. The ten-year average Min neapolis price is $1.205 per bushel.
Market grades of Minnesota commercial flax seed.
No. 1 Northwestern.—Shall be mature, sound, dry and sweet. It shall be northern-grown. The maximum field-, stack-, storage- or other damaged seed shall not exceed 12 per cent. The minimum weight shall be fifty-one pounds to the measured bushel of commercially pure flax.
Aro. I./Mx seed.—No. 1 flax seed shall be north ern-grown, sound, dry and free from mustiness, and carrying not more than 25 per cent of immature or field-, stack-, storage- or other damaged flax seed ; and it must weigh not less than fifty pounds to the measured bushel of commercially pure seed.
Rejected flax seed.—Flax seed that is bin-burnt, immature, field-damaged or musty, and yet not to a degree to be unfit for storage, and having a test weight of not less than forty-seven pounds to the bushel of commercially pure seed, shall be rejected.
No-grade flax seed.—Flax seed that is damp, warm, mouldy, very musty, or otherwise unfit for storage, or having a weight of less than forty-seven pounds to the measured bushel of commercially pure seed, shall be no-grade.
The above grades represent only one market. The grades for other markets differ somewhat and depend on the location.
Literature.
Textile Fibers, Maxwell ; Yearbook United States Department Agriculture ; Fiber Investigations, Reports, United States Department Agriculture, Martin Dodge ; North Dakota and other State Ex periment Station Bulletins ; Minnesota Plant Dis eases, E. M. Freeman ; Soils and Crops of the Farm, Morrow and Hunt.