FLAX CULTIVATION.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXV, Issue 5634, 12 March 1869, Page 3

FLAX CULTIVATION.

Ms. J. Cbispb (tends the following for the benefit of all engaged ia flax cultivation :—": — " As the time has arrived for preparing ground for flax planting, I will give the result of my small experiment, a* fur as it qo i s, and shall be truly glad if it should ba of auy use to others in induciug them to plant fUx, feeling assured of the importance of suoh cultivation to every settler. The manufacture o£ the fibre^ the market price, aed' the unlimited demand for a good article are now pretty well established facto, and the supply of the raw material is the great desideratum. Many have fallen, into the error of putting up their maohines, and then having t> get the fax from great distances, wheiens undoubtedly the wiie course would have been to put up your machines where there is abundance of £Ux. But, to my text ; I planted an aore more or less six months back, three pUnts in a plot and the plots six feet apart, and six feet between each row. My plants were cut down to merely stumps; they giew well, and out of 1,000 plants I do not think ab->ve 2J missed {.rowing. The leaves aro now from 2 feet 6in. to 3 leet long, and I have not the least doubt that within two years from planting they will be ready to cut. The land was once ploughed and harrowed. Of course the better land, the better worked, the better the flax will grow, and I have no doubt a sprinkling of bone duit to each root would do good in planting. I should now say that 6 feet from plant to plant will do, and 5 feet from low to row j but between every third and fourth row have & good 8 feet for a cart to go without doing damage to .the flax. I planted pumpkius, horse beans, grey peas, *c, &c, between my rows of flax, and with rery fair sucees*, which would have baen better had the ground been mauurecl. A couple of rows of potatoes could very well be planted between the rows. I think it would be a* well to run two or three furrows with the plough f the first and second ye*r to loosen the ground, and to dear the weeds off a bit. I «hould nay the first expense of preparing ground and planting would be about; £2 10 1. to £3 per acre, and perhaps another IO*» to 15s. would coverall future expenses until fit to cut. Then what it would be worth per aore I dpn't like to say, or I should be nabbed for an acreage valoe tax, vide our new Rural Bill. Now I bave given my small bit of information, aich as it is— and doubtless many could give much more, and probably bctttr — but what's the use of that if they won't ? Mina, such as it id, ii practical and positive."

An Ameotionate Son! — 4 n old toper, la the last itfcgei of' the dropsy, vs as told by hio phyucun tbafc nobbing could save him but being tapped. His little son objected to this proposition by ■ayinjf, "paddy, daddy, doa'fclet him; for you know that then was mrtet tfas anything tapped' in thit home tlafc lasted more th*n a week.- | 1 A sinculac phenomenon i« reported to have occurred lately *t East Melbourne. During tie thunderstorm whteh t3ok» place there, a •t«nrtr of worfcs yarying from tiro to two and a half inches in length ;f«)J, and in' on©'fnst*&ee the- wiudows were ooftmi and tha yard filled witli those unusual T,mtoi'9. " ' ' " ' " , v . , • A -oof>('Cr,' fltsdng a daady « fi'uger overea "With r4;tgs-; ; declared be &mM ; dV* weak fellow, or lie require «> m»oy hoofii. ' ' '