In this country very little attention is given to the use of manures and commercial fertilizers for flax. It is doubtful whether the latter are necessary, if the farmers use proper systems of crop rotation, and by the use of farm manures and waste products maintain the soil fertility.
In the use of manures, it is always preferable to have them in a fine or composted condition, espe cially on the lighter soils. It is not advisable to apply the manure the same year that the seed is sown, as it causes an uneven crop, a tendency to ward coarseness of the fiber, and frequently light seed. Aside from this, it brings more or less weed seed to the soil. A few of the states report the use of fertilizers, such as nitrate of soda, muriate of potash, dried blood, dissolved bone-black, dried, fish and various barnyard manures, but no authen tic results have yet been recorded.
The eastern states, as a rule, practice methods of manuring, while the western country gives little or no attention to this feature of crop production. On the older farms of the East, fertilizing is necessary for the success of the crop. On the newer western farms, flax may be grown for a number of years without the use of manures ; but, sooner or later, manures will become an absolute necessity.
It is recommended that the shires from the mill and the flax straw from the threshing machine be returned to the soil. If this is done, a very large part of the fertilizing ingredients are returned. The only elements removed and not returned to the soil are those of the seed, which are as follows : Water, 12.3 per cent ; ash, 3.4 per cent ; crude fiber, 7.2 per cent ; albuminoids, 20.5 per cent ; carbo hydrates, 19.6 per cent ; fats, 37 per cent of the total weight of the seed. When the straw is pool retted for the manufacturing of the fiber, large returns may be secured by sprinkling the pool steep, which is rich in organic matter, on the flax field. This is likely to introduce the wilt disease, however, if flax is to follow in the next few years.
The seed.—It was supposed for a long time that, in order to procure the best results, seed-flax must be imported, at least every three or four years, from the flax-growing countries of Europe. How ever true this may be for the production of the flax fiber, it does not hold true for the production of seed. Many imported varieties of flax have been tested at the Minnesota Experiment Station, but none has proved so valuable a seed-producer as the common or native flax, which is undoubtedly an acclimated stock of the well-known Riga. It is not
definitely known that it is necessary to import seed in order to secure fiber for the production of the finer linens.
In growing flax for seed, a farmer can afford to use nothing but the best. There is such a vast dif ference in the individual seeds in their power of growth and production, that to use the small, shrunken seeds is but to encourage a small yield. In ordinary farm practice, however, it is seldom that a farmer makes any effort to select the largest, heaviest, plumpest and most matured seed (those known by experience and experiment to give best results) for seeding purposes. He sells all the seed as threshed, except enough in the bottom of the bin to plant his next year's acreage, many times not even saving this, but depending on the local elevator for seed the next spring.
The selection of the seed can best be made on the specific gravity basis, i. e., taking advantage of the difference in the weights of the seeds. The ordinary fanning-mills will do this work quickly and effectively when operated intelligently. The better form to use is the "sideshake" mill. This form drops the seed off the feed-board under the hopper in a steady stream. The wind blast here catches and carries the grain with it to various distances according to the weight of the kernels, the lightest seeds being carried out at the back of the mill, while the heaviest ones drop nearly straight down. By setting the sieves in the lower shoes of the "shake" (one so as to catch the heavy kernels and the other farther out so as to catch the medium and lighter grains), the best can be saved for seed and the other, called "market grain," can be cleaned. The small percentage thus saved does not lower the market grade of the grain, for separating this from the chaff and lightest seeds more than compensates for the small percentage saved for seed purposes. So far as the writer is aware, no experiments have been made comparing the results from good, medium and poor seed-flax, but with all other classes of crops the results have shown marked advantages in favor of the well-graded seeds.