ertain to command, for two or three
years at least, a higher price than hitherto, because of the increased
growth and extended use of the fiber. Let no farmer who has Flax growing
be tempted to sell the seed by contract or otherwise for the present;
let none be given over to the tender mercies of oil-mills. We shall need
all that is grown this year for sowing next Spring, and it is morally
certain to bear a high price even this Fall. The sagacious should
caution their less watchful neighbors on this point. I shall be
disappointed if a bushel of Flax-seed be not worth two bushels of Wheat
in most parts of our Country next May.

Our ensuing Agricultural Fairs, State and local, should be improved for
the diffusion of knowledge and the attainment of concert and mutual
understanding with regard to the Flax-Culture. For the present, at any
rate, few farmers can afford or will choose to incur the expense of the
heavy machinery required to break and roughly dress their flax, so as to
divest it of four-fifths of its bulk and leave the fiber in a state for
easy transportation to the central points at which Flax-Cotton machinery
may be put in operation. If the Flax-straw has to be hauled fifty or
sixty miles over country roads to find a purchaser or breaking-machine,
the cost of such transportation will nearly eat up the proceeds. If the
farmers of any township can be assured beforehand that suitable
machinery will next Summer be put up within a few miles of them, and a
market there created for their Flax, its growth will be greatly
extended. And if intelligent, energetic, responsible men will now turn
their thoughts toward the procuring and setting up of the best
Flax-breaking machinery (not for fully dressing but merely for
separating the fibre from the bulk of the woody substance it incloses)
they may proceed to make contracts with their neighboring farmers for
Flax-straw to be delivered in the Autumn of next year on terms highly
advantageous to both parties. The Flax thus roughly dressed may be
transported even a hundred miles to market at a moderate cost, and there
can be no reasonable doubt of its commanding a good price. M. Claussen
assures me that he could now buy and profitably use almost any quantity
of such Flax if it were to be had. The only reason (he says) why there
are not now any number of spindles and looms running on Flax-Cotton is
the want of the raw material. (His patent is hardly yet three mouths
old.) Taking