King's county, Long Island.

It contains a court-house, a flourishing academy, a Dutch church, and many elegant houses. On the 27th of August, 1776, a bloody battle was fought near it, between the Americans, under general Putnam, and the British and Hessians, under lord Piercy, and generals Clinton and Grant, wherein the latter were victorious. Flatbush is pleasantly situated on a small bay, five miles south by east of New York.

FLATMAN (Thomas), an English poet of some repute, born at London about 1633. He studied at the Inner Temple, and became a barrister; but having a turn for the fine arts, he followed his inclination, and acquired reputation both as a poet and a painter. He published, in 1682, a third edition of his poems and songs, dedicated to the duke of Ormond; and a satirical romance in prose, on Richard Cromwell, soon after the Restoration. In his youth he wrote a curious satire against matrimony, beginning,

Like a dog with a bottle tied close to his tail,
Like a Tory in a bog, or a thief in a jail.
He died about 1688.

FLATTER, v. a. FLATTERER, N. s. FLATTERY.

French, flatter; Teut. flechan; Minsheu says, ' à SLat. flatare, frequentative,

à flare, to blow': but the word has probably been formed from flat,' smooth: in Swed. flat is both smooth and indulgent; as in Scot. to stroke is also to flatter; and we know that flatterers of all countries are well acquainted with smooth things. To soothe, or please, with praise, false, or true; to gratify with obsequious, or servile compliment. He flattereth himself in his own eyes, until his iniPsalm xxxvi. 2. quity be found hateful. While either partye laboureth to be chiefe, flattery shall haue more place than plaine and faithfull aduyse.

Sir T. More.

Shakspeare.

Id.

When I tell him he hates flatterers, He says he does; being then most flattered. Here feel we but the penalty of Adam, The season's difference, as the icy fang, And churlish chiding of the winter's wind; Which when it bites and blows upon my body, Ev'n 'till I shrink with cold, I smile and say Id. As You Like It. This is no flattery. A flatterer is compared to an ape, who, because she cannot defend the house like a dog, labour as an ox, or bear burdens as a horse, doth therefore yet play Raleigh. tricks, and provoke laughter.

Some praises proceed merely of fluttery; and if he be an ordinary flatterer, he will have certain common attributes, which may serve every man if he be a cunuing flatterer, he will follow the arch flatterer,

Bacon.

Milton.

Fielding.

Young.

Id.

Cowper.

Old Fr. flatulent; Ital. and Span. flatulento; Lat. flatulentus, flatus, a puff, or blast, of wind. Windy; turgid with air; hence, metaphorically, empty; vain; unmeaning: flatuosity, from the Fr. flatuosité is synonymous with flatulency: flatus is used both in the latter sense, for a puff, or breeze of wind; and, medically, for wind gathered in any of the cavities of the body.

Rhubarb in the stomach, in a small quantity, doth digest and overcome, being not flatuous nor loathsome; and so sendeth it to the mesentery veins, and, being Bacon. opening, it helpeth down urine.

The cause is flatuosity; for wind stirred, moveth to expel; and all purges have in them a raw spirit of wind, which is the principal cause of tension in the Id. stomach and belly.

You make the soul a mere flatus.

Clarke to Dodwell. How many of these flatulent writers have sunk in their reputation, after seven or eight editions of their Dryden. works.

Flatulent tumours are such as easily yield to the pressure of the finger, but readily return, by their elasticity, to a tumid state again. Quincy.

tion.

Pease are mild and demulcent; but, being full of aerial particles, are flatulent when dissolved by digesArbuthnot. Vegetable substances contain a great deal of air, which expands itself, producing all the disorders of flatulency. Id. To talk of knowledge from those few indistinct representations which are made to our grosser facultics, is a flatulent vanity. Glanville's Scepsis. FLAVEL (John), a celebrated nonconformist divine, was educated at University College, Oxford; and became minister of Deptford, and afterwards of Dartmouth in Devonshire, where he resided the greater part of his life. Though he was generally respected at Dartmouth, yet, in 1685, several of the aldermen of that town, attended by the rabble, carried about a ridiculous effigy of him, to which were affixed the bill of exclusion and the covenant. He, therefore, thought it prudent to withdraw from the town. He died in 1691 aged sixty-one; after his death, his works, consisting of many pieces of practical divinity, were printed in 2 vols. folio. Among tuese, the most famous are, 1. Navigation Spiritualised; 2. Divine Conduct, or the Mysteries of Providence; and, 3. Husbandry Spiritualised; of all which there have been many editions.

FLAUNT, n. s. & v. n. Goth. flugant, flowing or fluttering (proudly). To flutter, to make a fluttering or pert show or appearance. A flaunt is any thing loosely worn; ostentatious display. Let dainty wits cry on the sisters nine, That, bravely masked, their fancies may be told, Or Pindar's apes, flaunt they in phrases fine, Enamelling with py'd flowers their thoughts of gold. Sir P. Sidney.

How would he look to see his work so noble, Wildly bound up, what would he say! or how Should I in these my borrowed flaunts behold The sternness of his presence!

Shakspeare.

Milton.

With ivy canopy'd, and interwove With flaunting honeysuckle. These courtiers of applause deny themselves things convenient to flaunt it out, being frequently enough fain to immolate their own desires to their vanity. Boyle.

Here, attired beyond our purse, we go, For useless ornament and flaunting show: We take on trust, in purple robes to shine, And poor, are yet ambitious to be fine. Dryden. You sot, you loiter about ale-houses, or flaunt about the streets in your new-gilt chariot, never minding me nor your numerous family. Arbuthnot.

Fortune in men has some small difference made; One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade. Pope.

FLA'VOR, or French flair (scent); FLAVOUR, N. s. Welsh flare (an unpleaFLA'VOROUS, adj. sant smell); Lat. flo, FLA'VORED flare; Greek, pλaw, to blow. Taste; pleasant or unpleasant savor; power of pleasing the taste; odor; fragrance.

Myrtle, orange, and the blushing rose, With bending heaps, so nigh their bloom disclose, Each seems to smell the flavour which the other blows.

Dryden.

They have a certain flavour, at their first appear ance, from several accidental circumstances, which they may lose if not taken early.

Addison's Spectator. Dyer.

And flavoured Chian wines. FLAW, n. s. & v. a. Sax. Floh; Gothic FLAWLESS, adj. flah, from fla, to divide; FLAW'Y. and thus the Icel. flagan, to divide, gives flag the divided portion, see FLAG (a stone). Mr. II. Tooke considers ploh as the past participle of plean, to flay. A breach; crack; defect; hence, its causes, a sudden blast figuratively); and its consequences, a fragment; or blow; a tumult, or commotion (literally and piece separated or broken off: in conformity with the Gothic usage we write to flaw; for to break; crack; damage with fissures or by violence.

Oh, that that earth, which kept the world in awe, Should patch a wall, to expel the Winter's flaw. Shakspeare. Hamlet.

And this fell tempest shall not cease to rage, Until the golden circuit on my head Do calm the fury of this madbrained flaw.

Shakspeare.

This heart shall break into a thousand flaws Or ere I weep. Shakspeare. King Lear. But his flawed heart, Alack, too weak the conflict to support, "Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief, Burst smilingly.

Id.

Oh these flaws and starts, Impostors to true fear, would become A woman's story at a Winter's fire. Id. Macbeth. France hath flawed the league, and hath attached Our merchants' goods. Id. Henry VIII. Wool, new-shorn, being laid casually upon a vessel of verjuice after some time had drunk up a great part of the verjuice, though the vessel were whole, without any flaw, and had not the bung-hole open. Bacon's Natural History.

As a huge fish, laid

Near to the cold weed-gathering shore, is with a north flaw fraid,

Shoots back; so, sent against the ground,
Was foiled Eurialus.

Chapman's Iliad. Bursting their brazen dungeon, armed with ice, And snow, and hail, and stormy gust, and flaw, Boreas, and Cacias, and Argestes loud,

And Thrascias, rend the woods, and seas upturn. Milton

And laid her dowery out in law, To null her jointure with a flaw. Hudibras. We found it exceeding difficult to keep out the air from getting in at any imperceptible hole or flaw. Bogle

A star of the first magnitude, which the more high, enough to make itself conspicuous. more vast, and more flawless, shines only bright Id.

cracks, that it looks like a white, not like a crystalline The cup was flawed with such a multitude of little

cup.

Id. The brazen cauldrons with the frosts are flawed, The garment stiff with ice, at hearths is thawed.

Dryden.

The fort's revolted to the emperor, The gates are opened, the portcullis drawn, And deluges of armies from the town Came pouring in: I heard the mighty flaw; When first it broke, the crowding ensigns saw Which choaked the passage. Id. Aurengsebe.

Traditions were a proof alone, Could we be certain such they were, so known: But since some flaws in long descents may be, They make not truth, but probability. Dryden. So many flaws had this vow in its first conception. Atterbury.

Their judgment has found a flaw in what the generality of mankind admires. Addison's Spectator.

He that would keep his house in repair, must attend

every little breach or flaw, and supply it immediately, Swift.

else time alone will bring all to ruin.

Whether the nymph shall break Diana's law, Or some frail China-jar receive a flaw.

Pope. An adversary, on the contrary, makes a stricter search into us, discovers every flaw and imperfection

FLAWN. Sax. plena; Fr. flan, i. e. flowing. A custard or cheesecake; a soft or flowing kind of pudding.

Fill oven full of flawns; Ginny pass not for sleep, To-morrow thy father his wake-day will keep. Tusser.

FLAX, n. s. Sax. pleax, Flex; Goth. FLAX-COMB, fleaks; Teut. flachs; Belg. FLAX-DRESSER, vlasch. Quære from the FLAX'EN, adj. Goth. floa; Sax. flowan, to FLAX Y. flow, from its fibrous texture. The plant from which linen is made; the fibres of that plant prepared for the spinner: flax-comb is the instrument whereby it is cleansed: and flax-dresser he who cleanses or prepares it: flaxen, and flaxy, made of, flowing like, or being of the color of, flax.

The four colours signify four virtues. The flary having whiteness appertains to temperance. Sandys. I'll fetch some flax, and whites of eggs, T' apply to's bleeding face.

Shakspeare. King Lear. Then on the rock a scanty measure place Of vital flax, and turn the wheel apace, And turning sung.

Dryden's Ovid.

I bought a fine flaren long wig. Addison. The best materials for making ligatures are the flaren threads that shoemakers use. Sharp's Surgery. The matron, at her nightly task, With pensive labour draws the flaren thread. Thomson's Winter. Five sister-nymphs with dewy fingers twine The beamy flax, and stretch the fibre-line; Quick eddying threads from rapid spindles reel, Or whirl with beating foot the dizzy wheel. Darwin. FLAX, the linum usitatissimum of Linné, has been cultivated in this country, and in most civilised countries, from time immemorial, both for its fibre in making thread, and for its seed, occasionally, as yielding a serviceable oil. The common flax has scarcely any varieties worth remarking. The blue or lead-colored is mentioned by Marshall as being cultivated in Yorkshire; and professor Thaer mentions a finer and coarser variety; he also, as well as some other writers, has tried the linum perenne, but the fibre is coarser, though strong, and with difficulty detached.

Flax, for fine lawn and cambric, is recommended to be sown on a rich light soil, previously well prepared by ploughing and made level like a garden. As the soil cannot be too rich, it ought to have at least double the quantity of seed commonly sown by farmers; and, when sown in dry weather, the ground should be immediately rolled. The lint should be carefully

weeded when about three inches high; after which forked sticks are to be stuck in the ground, so as to receive poles from ten to fifteen feet long, six or seven inches above the lint. Each row of poles should be three or four feet asunder, so as to support a layer of brush-wood, laid as thick and level as possible. The brushwood may be of any sort except oak, which tinges the lint; but none of the branches must be left sticking higher than eighteen or twenty inches above the lint. The brush-wood, when the flax springs up, catches it by the middle, and prevents it from lying down and rotting; infallible consequences of sowing thick upon rich ground. It also keeps it straight, moist, and soft at the roots; and, by keeping it warm and shaded from the sun, greatly promotes its length. It must be pulled as soon as the seed is fully formed, before the lint turns yellow; and thus, instead of that coarse hardness, which flax has when let stand till fully ripe, it acquires a fine silky property. It must be pulled above the brush-wood, and every handful laid upon it as soon as possible: in fine weather it may be left four or five hours in that manner; after which it should be conveyed to a shade near a barn, where it may be spread for four or five days, always putting it in the barn at night, or on the appearance of rain. When in the barn, every precaution must be used to prevent it from heating; and if it happen to get rain or wet, in the course of these operations, which must be continued till it is perfectly dry, it should be allowed to dry in the open air; for, if put under cover when wet, it is apt to turn black, which must be carefully guarded against, as this is a principal cause of those bars so much complained of by bleachers. In all these operations, the roots should be kept as even as possible; and if any coarse lint be discovered it should be separated from the rest. As it is a principal object to preserve the lint entire, or unbroken, the bolls are beat off with a round mall or beetle. When it is intended to water it immediately, it is next tied up in bundles about as large as a man may grasp in his two hands. The pit ought to be dug three or four months before it is used, about five feet deep and seven or eight broad, the length according to the quantity of flax to be watered. The water should be soft, and free of any metallic ore; and no flood or foul water should be allowed to enter the pit; but a small stripe of clear water should always run in and off from it while the lint is in it. Along the sides of the pit, hooks of this form must be driven in at about five feet distance, so as to hold a long pole under the surface of the water; after which the lint must be made up into bundles, laying the sheaves head to head, and making each to overlap the other about one-third. When they are thus built, till the bundle is about four feet or four feet and a half high, it is then tied in the middle and at each root end, wrapped in straw and put into the water, with the thin or broad side undermost. The lint being thus put into the water in distinct bundles, so as they may be easily taken out, cross poles are put in with their ends under the long ones in each side of the pit, so as to keep the lint three or four inches under water, but without any of it touching the ground.

The soils generally most proper for flax, besides the alluvial kinds, are deep and friable loams, and such as contain a large proportion of vegetable matter in their composition. Strong clays do not answer well, nor soils of a gravelly or dry sandy nature. But, whatever be the kind of soil, it ought neither to be in too poor nor too rich a condition; because, in the latter case, the flax is apt to grow too luxuriant, and to produce a coarse sort; and, in the former case, the plant, from growing weakly, affords only a small produce. If there be water at a small depth below the surface of the ground, it is thought by some still better, as is the case in Zealand, which is remarkable for the fineness of its flax, and where the soil is deep and rather stiff, with water almost every where, at the depth of a foot and a half or two feet underneath it. It is said to be owing to the want of this advantage, that the other provinces of Holland do not succeed equally well in the culture of this useful plant; not but that fine flax is also raised on high lands, if they have been well tilled and manured, and if the seasons are not very dry. It is remarked, in the letters of the Dublin Agricultural Society, that moist stiff soils yield much larger quantities of flax, and far better seed, than can be obtained from light lands; and that the seed secured from the former may, with proper care, be rendered full as good as any that is imported from Riga or Zealand. M. du Hamel, however, thinks that strong land can hardly yield such fine flax as that which grows on lighter ground.

Mr. Donaldson observes, that flax is sown after all sorts of crops, but is found to succeed best on lands lately broken up from grass. And that in Scotland, the most skilful cultivators of flax generally prefer lands from which only one crop of grain has been taken, after having been several years in pasture. When such lands have been limed or marled, immediately before being laid down to grass, the crop of flax seldom or never misgives, unless the season prove remarkably adverse to it. It succeeds in general much better after green crops, than those of the grain kind.

The land, in order to render it fit for the growth of this sort of crop, requires to be rendered perfectly fine and mellow, by being repeatedly ploughed over, and broken down by severe harrowings. When grass land is to be broken up for this crop, it should be done in the autumn, and left exposed to the influence of the atmosphere until the early part of the following year, when it should be well pulverised and broken down by heavy harrowing; then, in the course of a week or two, ploughed again, in which state it may remain till the period of putting in the seed, when another light harrowing should be given, and the ploughing performed afterwards by a very light furrow. But in cases where the crop is sown after grain, or other crops that have the property of keeping the land clean from weeds, the first ploughing need not be given till January, when it may remain in that situation until it becomes pretty dry in the early spring, being then well reduced by good harrowing and rolling; and, after continuing in that state about a fortnight, the seed may either be

immediately put in, or another light ploughing and harrowing be first given.

With regard to the choice of seed, the same writer states, that that which is of a bright brownish color, oily to the feel, and at the same time weighty, is considered the best. Linseed, unported from various countries, is employed. That brought from Holland is, however, in the highest estimation, as it not only ripens sooner than any other that is imported, but also produces greater crops, and flax of that quality which best suits the chief manufactures of this country. American seed produces in common fine flax; but neither the quantity of flax, nor of the pods, provincially the bolls,' which contain the seeds, is so large as the produce from Dutch linseed. The Riga seed yields a very coarse sort of flax, but a greater quantity of seeds than any other. It is common in some parts of Scotland to sow seeds saved from the crop the preceding year, especially when the crop was raised from seed imported from Holland. The success of this practice is found to depend greatly on changing the seed from one sort of soil to another of an opposite nature; but the saving in the expense of purchasing that sort of seed, in place of what is newly imported from Holland, is so inconsiderable, and the risk of the crop misgiving so much greater in the one case than in the other, that it is supposed those only who are ignoraut of the consequences, or who are compelled from neces sity, are chargeable with this act of ill-judged parsimony in the business.

In Ireland the cultivators of flax prefer the American seed for the lighter and more elevated and exposed lands; but the Baltic or Dutch for those which are of a heavier quality. The seed of home produce is often sown for white flax in Yorkshire; but the Baltic sort is mostly preferred where seed is the object; which, for the ensuing year, and one or two afterwards, is found to answer as well as white flax. is highly probable that, if that which has been collected from the perfectly ripened seed of our own growth be made use of, it will be equally productive in both the flaxy substance and the quantity of seed, and the former be equally valuable for all the purposes of the manufacturer.

But it

Proportion of Seed. In respect to the quantity of seed used, it varies in different places according to the circumstances of the soil, the me thod of sowing, and the uses to which the crop is to be applied; but from two bushels, to two bushels and a half, the English statute acre, is the ordinary allowance. In determining the proper quantity necessary for the acre, it is requisite to pay great attention to the condition of the land. When the land is rich and fertile, and the season so favorable that it can be gut thoroughly pulverised, if too much seed is sown the crop is in great danger of lodging; and when that happens, particularly before the pods are formed, the flax proves inconsiderable in quantity, and very inferior in quality. When cultivated in the drill mode, at narrow distances, a much less quantity will be sufficient than in other cases; and where the intervals are large, scarcely one-half the quantity is required. When the crops are intended for seed, in whatever

manner the sowing is performed, much less will be necessary, than where flax is the main object of the grower.

The time of sowing it must depend much upon the soil and situation; but the ordinary season of sowing flax-seed is from the middle of March to the middle or end of April; but the last week of March, and the first ten days of April, are esteemed the best times; and accordingly within these periods the greatest quantity of flax-seed is sown in this country. In the county of York, where this sort of crop is grown on land broken up from grass, the seed is commonly sown before the second week in April, where it can possibly be done; while, on such lands as have been in a previous state of tillage, the sowing is frequently deferred a week or ten days longer. Wherever it can be safely practised, early sowing has the advantage of getting the flax plants to cover the surface of the land well, before they can run much risk of injury from the rising of weeds, or the parching effects of heat. In some of the southern counties of Europe, however, the husbandmen who raise flax, sow part of their seed in September and October; so that the plants which spring from thence remain of course in the ground all the winter; and this may be a judicious practice in those places, because plants which have not covered the earth well before the summer heats come on are apt to be parched by the heat and drought which usually prevail in that season. They sow linseed again also in the spring; but the latter does not yield so large a crop; the flax, however, which it produces is more esteemed, because it is finer than that sown in autumn. M. du Hamel seems indeed to think, that the autumnal sowing yields the best seed; but however that may be, in places where the winter is apt to be severe, and where the flax, which is but a tender plant, would in course be in danger of being destroyed during that season, almost all the flax is sown about the end of March, or in the beginning of April, as already stated.

The land which is intended for flax crops should be brought to an exceeding fine tilth, in the way directed above, before the seed is put in. When pasture lands are broken up, in order to their being sown with flax, they must be well wrought during several months, before they will be fit for producing such crops, in the manner just described. To defray the expense of this culture, some other crops may be got off the land in the mean time, especially of such plants as do not occupy it long, and particularly of those which are remarkably benefited by frequent stirring of the earth whilst they grow; such as beans, peas, turnips, &c., because these repeated stirrings render the mould fine and loose, and help to kill the weeds, which would otherwise do great damage to the flax. It is as serted, that the Livonians, when they clear woodlands, burn the wood upon them, then plough them, and in this state prefer them to any other kind of soil for flax crops. If the land which is intended for flax be stiff, great care should be taken not to work it when it is wet, for fear of kneading it; but it is often an excellent plan to work it deeply before winter, when dry, laying VOL. IX.

it up in very high ridges, in order that the winter frosts may the more effectually moulder and loosen its parts. In the month of February, where the land is not too wet, some very rotten dung should be laid on, and immediately covered over with the mould. The seed should afterwards, at the proper season, be sown, and harrowed in with a light or bush harrow, so as not to bury it too deep. As this, when young, is a very tender plant, and is more easily injured and checked in its progress by weeds than any other that is usually cultivated in the field, it is indispensably necessary that the danger of injury in this way should be well guarded against, in order to save future trouble and expense.

Where the principal object of the grower is flax, the most general method of putting in the crops is that of sowing them broadcast over the surface of the land. In performing the business, much care is necessary that the seed be dispersed as evenly as possible over the ground, to prevent the plants rising in an unequal or tufty manner. It should be afterwards covered in by regular harrowing, once or twice in a place, with a light common or bush-harrow, as just noticed, not covering it in too deep. But, where the seed constitutes the chief intention of the cultivator, it is contended by some that the drill mode is preferable, as requiring much less seed in sowing, and affording a much better and more abundant produce. Besides, the smoothness and weight of the seed render it extremely proper for being drilled; and the crops can be kept clean with greater facility.

In this method, the distances of the rows or drills should vary according to the circumstances of the soil, and the manner in which the crops are to be kept clean. Where the hand-hoe is to be chiefly depended upon, narrow distances may be proper, as ten or twelve inches; but, where the work is to be principally executed by the horse-hoe or cultivator, larger intervals may be more suitable, as those of eighteen or twenty inches. Slight harrowing and rolling are sometimes afterwards necessary, especially the latter, in dry seasons. It has been observed that thick sown flax runs up in height, and produces fine soft flax; but that when sown thin it does not rise to such a height, but spreads out more, sending off a greater number of side branches, which produce a great abundance of seed which is much better filled, more plump and heavy than that which is produced from thick-sown flax crops. Flax crops cultivated in this way are not so liable to be beaten down in bad weather, the stems being stronger and better fortified by the more free admission of sun and air among them; and they are not so much exposed to danger in weeding or cleaning the rows.

Where flax crops are sown in the broadcast method, they are seldom much attended to afterwards: it is, however, highly useful and necessary that they should have one good hand-hoeing, or weeding, as soon as ever the crop is sufficiently up; care being taken not to injure the plants by too much treading amongst them. In the drill manner of sowing, the after-culture of the crops must be regulated by the distance of the rows; but they may in general be cleaned

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