FLAX

(Linum usitati imum), a! annual plant belonging to the famil: Linacez. It po e es a tall, slender upright stem, clothed with small leaves The flower is large and brilliant blue and persists only one day. Man: flowers are borne at the apex of th stem. The fruit is a capsule, and contain when ripe ten flat seeds—linseed. Th original home of the f. is Western Persie but for many you sand years it has bee cultivated all over the north-temper at and subtropical zones in such station as are suited to it. It demands for it best development a cool and_mois climate. In Ireland, Eastern Ru iz Belgium, and Holland it reaches it finest quality. F. is cultivated for th sake of its seeds and of its fibre. Linsee yields, on pre ing, an oil which i valuable in the manufacture of pain and of printer’s ink. The compre e refuse is used as otl-cake for feed in cattle, and the ground seed constitute linseed meal.: The bast of the stem (that part of th fibre which surrounds the wood) is th raw material of linen. To obtain it the: stems, from which the seed pods hav been removed, are rotted for 10 to 1 days in hard water; they are then beate to break up the wood, and subjecte q to various combing proce es, by means of which the long bast fibres are separated from shorter fibres, and from the wood—these forming the tow. From the | fibre thus obtained thread is manufactured by spinning, and cloth by weaving the thread.