plot of soil known to be "flax-sick." The majority of the plants succumbed to the disease. The very few that survived were carefully harvested and stored. The seeds from these were in turn planted on "flax-sick" soil. Year by year the proportion of plants surviving the attacks of the disease grew larger until, in 1904, a comparatively immune or wilt-resisting variety was secured. This experi ment, though simple and dealing only with one of our economic crops, has an immense economic value. It opens the road to success in breeding disease-resistant varieties of all our field crops, garden crops and flowers.
Harvesting.
The ideal way to harvest flax for the best quality of fiber is to pull it by hand, thus securing the full length. In Europe, where labor is cheap and the acreage per farmer small, the flax is nearly always pulled and stood up in bunches (stooks) to dry, but the high price of labor and the relative efficiency of harvesting machinery makes the pulling of flax almost prohibitive in America, and it is practiced only to a very limited extent.
When flax is grown exclusively for the seed, it is cut with the self-rake reaper or the binder. Occa sionally, in the absence of a better machine, the mower is used. Its use, however, is not at all satis factory, as it leaves the crop in condition difficult to handle without considerable loss. When cut with the binder, the farmers seldom use twine, and the gavels are thrown from the machine and lay as if cut with a reaper. If twine is used, the bundles are gathered into small, loose shocks that permit of rapid drying. If cut with the reaper, the gavels are left in position as they fall until well dried on the upper side. They are then turned with an old-style barley fork so as to expose the other side to the sun. When dry, the crop is either stacked or threshed. Often, in the absence of the threshing outfit, the crop remains in the field until the outfit arrives. For this reason, there is considerable loss caused by rains. The flax grown on the low ground is generally low grade if not carefully guarded, through molding and successive wetting and dry ing. A flax field at harvest-maturity is shown in Fig. 409.
A few trials have been made to determine the possibilities of heading the standing flax, then cutting and binding the straw, thus possibly de creasing the cost of preparing the straw for man ufacturing purposes. Nothing has as yet proved to be practicable. Ideas of special machines for and preparing the flax have been conceived, but thus far efforts have failed.
Obstructions to growth.
Weeds.—One of the greatest drawbacks to the production of flax is the ever-present weed incur sion, which sooner or later must be met by every farmer. On old land, especially, is it impossible
successfully to grow flax for seed with present methods of culture. On the newer lands weeds are no serious menace to the crop, although they are generally present in limited numbers. The nature of the flax plant gives ample opportunity, with thin sowings for seed purposes, for weeds to de velop. When five or six pecks are seeded per acre, weeds are crowded out if the ground is well pre pared before sowing, thus giving the plants a good start before the weeds get started. A good sys tem of crop rotation with flax following a grass lay or a corn crop for which manure has been applied, will quite eliminate this trouble.
The weeds commonly found in flax-fields of the Northwest are as follows : Foxtail (Chcetochloa viridis), lamb's-quarter (Chenopodium album), pig weed (Amaranthus retroflexus), pepper-grass (Lepid ium Virginicum), wild mustard (Brassica arvensis) and other of the mustard family, French weed (Thlaspi arvense), smartweed (Polygonum Persi caria). Many other weeds occasionally find their way into the flax-field, but do not attract attention as do those named. None of the weed seeds are ex ceptionally difficult to separate from flax seed. but when present they increase the cost of manufactur ing and decrease the market price, and cause a dockage to be levied, not to mention the cost of freight on them. In the flax-straw, weeds greatly decrease the value of the fiber. The weed-stalks are hard to break. When broken, the pieces catch in the fibers and cause tangling and breaking.
They also interfere with the scutching. Any weed ti'vrs that get into the skein are a detriment to the cloth ur cord manufactured.
Dimase. - One of the most dreaded of all diseases of field crops is the flax-wilt (Fusarium 100, Bolley). So prevalent is the disease that no flax -bearing country is free from it. Bolley says, "The plants are attacked at all ages and die early or late in the stage of growth, according to the time and inten sity of the attack. If the soil is much affected, that is to say, flax-sick; most of the plants are killed before they get through the surface of the ground." Young plants, two to five inches high, wilt suddenly, dry up, and soon decay if the weather becomes moist. Older plants take on a sickly, weak, yellowish appearance, wilt at the top, slowly die, turn brown and dry up. Nearly mature plants when attacked, but not dead, are easily pulled, the roots breaking off at about the level of the furrow slice. The diseased roots have a very characteristic ashy appearance.