from weeds, and kept in vigorous growth, by proper implements and horse labor. The ground between the rows is mostly wrought by a proper horse-hoe, cultivator, or small hoe-plough, taking care that none of the mould is thrown against the rows; to prevent which, the intervals may be hoed with a triangular harrow, having a proper number of iron tines in it, and guided by two handles fixed behind. By these handles the tines are made to go deeper or shallower at pleasure; and if the intervals are cultivated with this instrument, beginning before the earth is become stale, and while the weeds are small, the land may be kept very clean, and in fine tilth, at much less expense than hand-hoeing: for one horse is sufficient for this work. A great deal may be done in a day; and by a frequent repetition of the hoeing, especially when the earth is dry, the weeds may be so effectually kept down as never to rise to any height. But the rows must be weeded by hand. With some it has been a custom to sow, with their linseed, either annual or perennial grass-seeds, when they intend to lay the land down for pasture after the crop is taken off. But as grass plants grow but weakly under the flax, it is a practice by no means to be recommended. No other sort of crop should, however, be ever grown with this, as much injury may be done by it. Flax is sometimes damaged by insects, when it it about three or four inches high. These, it is said, may be destroyed by a slight strewing of soot, ashes, &c., over the crop. At all events, this dressing will give vigor to the flax though it may not kill the insects. If any weeds appear afterwards among the flax, as is almost always the case, they must be thoroughly rooted out: and, that the flax may be as little damaged as possible in the doing of this, the weeders should work as carefully as possible. The finest flax is most liable to be laid, particularly in countries subject to storms. To guard against this accident, some people run across their flax-fields slender poles fixed to stakes but a better method is to run small ropes across the field, both lengthwise and breadthwise, where necessary; for these being fastened where they intersect one another, and supported by stakes at due distances, form a kind of network, which is proof against almost every accident that can happen from tempestuous weather. These practices are, however, both troublesome and expensive, and are seldom or ever necessary where the crops have not been sown too thick on the ground.

When the crop grows so short and branchy, as to appear more valuable for seed than flax, it ought not to be pulled before it be thoroughly ripe; but if it grows long and not branchy, the seed should be disregarded, and all the attention given to the flax. In the last case it ought to be pulled after the bloom has fallen, when the stalk begins to turn yellow, and before the leaves fall, and the bolls turn hard and sharp-pointed. When the stalk is small, and carries few bolls, the flax is fine; but the stalk of coarse flax is gross, rank, branchy, and carries many bolls. When the flax has fallen, and lies, such as lies ought to be immediately pulled, whether it has grown enough or not, as otherwise it will grow

unequally, so that some parts are ready for pulling before other parts; only what is ready should be pulled, and the rest should be suffered to stand till ready. The flax-raiser ought to be at pains to pull, and keep by itself, each different kind of lint which he finds in his field; what is both long and fine, by itself; what is both long and coarse, by itself; what is both short and fine, by itself; what is both short and coarse, by itself; and in like manner every other kind by itself that is of the same size and quality. If the different kinds be not thus kept separate, the flax must be much damaged in the watering and the other succeeding operations. What is commonly called under-growth may be neglected as useless. Few persons that have seen pulled flax, are ignorant of the method of laying it in handfuls across each other; which gives the flax sufficient air, and keeps the handfuls separate and ready for the rippler.

Donaldson observes, that a crop of flax frequently grows short, and runs out a great number of seed-bearing branches. When this is the case, the seeds, not the flax, ought to be the farmer's chief object, and the crop should be allowed to stand till the seeds are in a great measure perfected. But that when the crop thrives, and is likely to become more valuable for the flax than the seeds, it should be pulled soon after the bloom drops off, and before the pods turn hard and sharp in the points. When flax is grown for its fibre, Brown considers it the safest course to take it a little early, any thing wanting in quantity, being, in this way, made up by the superiority of quality.

After pulling, if the flax is to be regarded more than the seed, it should lie some hours upon the ground to dry a little, and so gain some firmness, to prevent the skin or harle, which is the flax, from rubbing off in the rippling; an operation which ought by no means to be neglected, as the bolls, if put into the water along with the flax, breed vermin there, and otherwise spoil the water. The bolls also prove very inconvenient in the grassing and breaking. In Lincolnshire and Ireland, they think that rippling hurts the flax; and, therefore, in place of rippling, they strike the bolls against a stone. The handfuls for rippling should not be great, as that endangers the lint in the rippling comb. After rippling, the flax-raiser will perceive that he is able to assort each size and quality of the flax by itself more exactly than he could before.

If the flax be more valuable than the seed, it ought by no means to be stacked during winter; for its own natural juice assists it greatly in the watering; whereas, if kept long unwatered, it loses that juice and the harle adheres so much to the boon, that it requires longer time to water, and even the quality of the flax becomes thereby harsher and coarser. Besides, the flax stacked up over year, is in great danger from vermin and other accidents; the water in spring is not so soft and warm as in harvest; and nearly a year is thereby lost of the use of the lint: but if the flax be so short and branchy as to appear most valuable for seed, it ought, after pulling, to be stooked and dried upon the field, as is done with corn; then stacked up for winter, rippled in

spring; and, after sheeling, the seed should be well cleaned from all bad seeds, &c.

off.

With regard to watering flax, a running stream wastes the lint, makes it white, and frequently carries it away. Both rivers and lochs water the flax quicker than canals. But all flax ought to be watered in canals, say our northern neighbours, which should be digged in clay ground if possible, as that soil retains the water best; but if a firm retentive soil cannot be got, the bottom or sides of the canal, or both the bottom and sides, may be lined with clay; or instead of lining the sides with clay, which might fall down, a ditch may be dug without the canal, and filled with clay, which will prevent both extraneous water from entering, and the water within from running A canal of forty feet long, six broad, and four deep, will generally water the growth of an acre of flax. It ought to be filled with fresh soft water from a river or brook, if possible, two or three weeks before the flax is put in, and exposed all that time to the heat of the sun. The greater way the river or brook has run, the softer, and therefore the better, will the water be. Springs, or short runs from hills, are too cold, unless the water is allowed to stand long in the canal. Water from coal or iron is very bad for flax. A little of the powder of galls, thrown into a glass of water, will immediately discover if it comes from minerals of that kind, by turning it into a dark color, more or less tinged in proportion to the quantity of vitriol it contains. The canal ought not to be under shade; which, besides keeping the sun from softening the water, might make part of the canal cooler than other parts, and so water the flax unequally. The flax-raiser will observe, when the water is brought to a proper heat, that small plants will be rising quickly in it, numbers of small insects and reptiles will be generating there, and bubbles of air rising on the surface. If no such signs appear, the water must not be warm enough, or is otherwise unfit for flax. Moss holes, when neither too deep, nor too shallow, frequently answer well for watering flax, when the water is proper, as before described. The proper season for watering flax is from the end of July to the end of August. The advantage of watering flax as soon as possible after pulling has been already mentioned. The flax being sorted after rippling, as before mentioned, should next be put in beets, never larger than a man can grasp with both his hands, and tied very slack with a band of a few stalks. Dried rushes answer exceedingly well for binding flax, as they do not rot in the water, and may be dried and kept for use again. The beets should be put into the canal slope-ways, or half standing upon end, the root end uppermost. Upon the crop ends, when uppermost, there frequently breed a deal of vermin, destructive of the flax, which is effectually prevented by putting the crop end downwards. The whole flax in the canal ought carefully to be covered from the sun with divots; the grassy side of which should be next the flax, to keep it clean. If it is not thus covered, the sun will discolor the flax, though quite covered with water. If the divots are not weighty enough to keep the flax entirely under

water, a few stones may be laid above them. But the flax should not be pressed to the bottom When the flax is sufficiently watered, it feels soft to the gripe, and the harle parts easily with the boon or show, which last is then become brittle, and looks whitish. When these signs are found, the flax should be taken out of the water, beet after beet; each gently rinsed in the water, to cleanse it of the nastiness which has gathered about it in the canal; and, as the lint is then very tender, and the beet slackly tied, it must be carefully and gently handled. Great care ought to be taken that no part be overdone; and as the coarsest waters soonest, if different kinds be mixed together, a part will be rotted, when the rest is not sufficiently watered. When lint taken out of the canal is not found sufficiently watered, it may be laid in a heap for twelve, eighteen, or twenty-four hours, which will have an effect like more watering; but this operation is nice, and may prove dangerous in unskilful hands. After the flax is taken out of the canal, fresh lint should not be put a second time into it, until the former water be run off, and the canal cleaned and supplied with fresh water. Short heath is the best field for grassing flax; as, when wet, it fastens to the heath, and is thereby prevented from being blown away by the wind. The heath also keeps it a little above the earth, and so exposes it the more equally to the weather. When such heath is not to be got, links or clean old lea ground is the next best. Long grass grounds should be avoided, as the grass growing through the lint frequently spots, tenders, or rots it; and grounds exposed to violent winds should also be avoided. The flax, when taken out of the water, must be spread very thin upon the ground; and, being then very tender, it must be gently handled. The thinner it is spread the better, as it is then the more equally exposed to the weather. But it ought never to be spread during a heavy shower, as that would wash and waste the harle too much, which is then excessively tender, but soon after becomes firm enough to bear the rain, which, with the open air and sunshine, cleans, softens, and purifies the harle to the degree wanted, and makes it blister from the boon. In short, after the flax has got a little firmness by being a few hours spread in dry weather, the more rain and sunshine it gets the better. If there be little danger of high winds carrying off the flax, it will be much the better for being turned about once a-week. If it is not to be turned, it ought to be very thinly spread. The spreading of flax and hemp requires a deal of ground, and enriches it greatly. The skilful flaxraiser spreads his first row of flax at the end of the field opposite to the point whence the most violent wind commonly comes, placing the root ends foremost; he makes the root ends of every other row over-lap the crop ends of the former row three or four inches, and binds down the last row with a rope; by which means the wind does not easily get below the lint to blow it away: and, as the crop ends are seldom so fully watered as the root ends, the aforesaid over-lapping has an effect like giving the crop ends more watering. Experience only can fully teach a person the signs of flax being sufficiently grassed:

then it is of a clearer color than formerly; the harle is blistered up, and easily parts with the boon, which is then become very brittle. The whole should be sufficiently grassed before any of it is lifted; for, if a part be lifted sooner than the rest, that which remains is in great danger from the winds. A dry day ought to be chosen for taking up the flax; and, if there is no appearance of high wind, it should be loosed from the heath or grass, and left loose for some hours, to make it thoroughly dry. As a great quantity of flax can scarcely be all equally watered and grassed, and as the different qualities will best appear at lifting the flax off the grass, therefore at that time each different kind should be gathered together, and kept by itself; that is, all of the same color, length, and quality. The smaller the beets lint is made up in, the better for drying, and the more convenient for stacking, housing, &c., and in making up these beets, as in every other operation upon flax, it is of great consequence that the lint be laid together as it grew, the root ends together, and the crop ends together.

In the Gentleman's Magazine for June, 1787, a method of watering flax is proposed whereby the labor would be shortened; the strength of the flax probably increased; the color rendered much finer; the operation of bleaching rendered safer and less tedious; a very disagreeable nuisance suppressed; the linen manufacture much improved; and the national income increased many thousand pounds a-year. The ingenious author, after pointing out the many inconveniences of the present method of soaking the flax in rivulets, ponds, and stagnant pools, such as the offensive smell and inky tinge arising from it in ponds, the pernicious effects of the noxious infusion, by destroying the fish in rivulets, the hurt done to cattle by preventing them from drinking the water, however thirsty, the danger of bad consequences even to the health of men, from the disagreeable effluvia, &c., proposes to improve as well as shorten the process, by plunging the new flax, after it is rippled, into scalding water, which, in extracting the vegetative sap, would do, in five minutes, more than cold water would do in a fortnight, or perhaps at all. This he illustrates analogically, by the familiar examples of infusing tea, and blanching rough almonds, in scalding water and not in cold water. Boiling water, he thinks, would also clear the new flax from many impurities, which, when not removed till it be spun into yarn, are then removed with difficulty, and loss of substance. Upon the new system, the act of bleaching would begin immediately after rippling; and a little done then might save much of what is generally done after spinning and weaving. To spin dirty flax, with a view of cleaning it afterwards, appears to be the same impropriety as if we were to reserve part of the dressing given to leather till after it is made into a glove. Should the plunging of the flax into the boiling water not suffice to make the boon brittle enough, then the common watering might be added; but in that case probably half the time usually given to this watering would suffice, and the flax might then be laid in clear rivulets, without any apprehension of its infecting the water and poisoning the fish, or of being discolored

itself; for the boiling water, into which it had been previously put, would have extricted all the poisonous vegetative sap, which I presume is what chiefly discolors the flax, or kills the fish. On the supposition that the use of boiling water in the preparation of flax may be advantageous, I can recollect at present but one objection against its being generally adopted. Every flaxgrower, it may be said, could not be expected to have conveniences for boiling water sufficient for the purpose; the consumption of water would be great; and some additional expense would be incurred. In answer to this, I presume any additional expense would be more than reimbursed by the better marketable price of the flax. In a large cauldron a great deal of flax might be dipt in the same water, and the consumption perhaps would not be more than a quart to each sheaf. Even a large household pot would be capable of containing one sheaf after another; and the whole objection would be obviated were the practice to prevail with us, as in Flanders and Holland, that the flax-grower and the flax-dresser should be two distinct professions. He concludes with recommending to those who are inclined to make experiments, not to be discouraged by the failure of one or two trials. Perhaps the flax, instead of being just plunged into the scalding water, ought to be kept in it five minutes, perhaps a quarter of an hour, perhaps a whole hour. Such boiling, when in this state, might in return save several hours boiling in the article of bleaching. It is not probable that the boiling of the flax with the boon in it would prejudice the harle; for, in the course of its future existence, it is made to be exposed twenty or forty times to this boiling trial; and, if not detrimental in the one case, it is to be presumed it would not be detrimental in the other. Perhaps, after the boiling, it would be proper to pile up the flax in one heap for a whole day, or half a day, to occasion some fermentation: or immediately after the boiling it might be proper to wash it with cold water. The great object, when the flax is pulled, is to get the harle from the boon with as little loss and damage as possible; and if this is accomplished in a more complete manner than usual, considerable labor and expense will be saved in the future manufacturing of the flax. On this account much more would be gained than lost, were the two or three last inches of the roots of the stems to be clipt off, previously to the flax being either watered or boiled. When the flax is watered, care should be taken not to spread it out dry, when there is a hazard of its being exposed in its wet state to frost. This method appears extremely plausible, and certainly merits a fair trial.

Hill and Bundy's machine for breaking fat and hemp, is the latest improvement of this kind. It seems to have been suggested by Mr. Lee as far back as 1810. It is portable, and may be worked in barns or out-houses of arv kind; a great part of the work is so light that it may be done by children and infirm persons; and such is the construction and simplicity of the machine, that no previous instruction o practice is required. The woody part is re

rollers or break being placed in the ground story, and the scutchers in the loft above; but a mill with vertical scutchers on an horizontal axle, requires but one ground story for all the machinery. Another method of breaking or scutching flax, more expeditious than the old hand methods, and more gentle than water mills, has also been lately invented in Scotland. It is much like the break and scutcher giving the sloping stroke last described, moving by the foot. The treadle is remarkably long, and the scutchers are fixed upon the rim of a fly-wheel. The foot break is also assisted in its motion by a fly. These foot machines are very useful where there are no water-mills, but they are far inferior to the mills in point of expedition.

The next operation that flax undergoes is heckling. The heckle is firmly fixed to a bench before the workman, who strikes the flax upon the teeth of the heckle, and draws it through the teeth. To persons unacquainted with that kind of work this may seem a very simple operation; but, in fact, it requires as much practice to acquire the sleight of heckling well, and without wasting the flax, as any other operation in the whole manufacture of linen. They use coarser and wider-teethed heckles, or finer, according to the quality of the flax; generally putting the flax through two heckles, a coarser one first, and next a finer one. See HECKLING.

Flax for cambric and fine lawn, thread, and lace, is dressed in a manner somewhat different. It is not scutched so thoroughly as common flax; which from the scutch proceeds to the heckle, and from that to the spinner: whereas, this fine flax, after a rough scutching, is scraped and cleansed with a blunt knife upon the workman's knee covered with his leather apron; from the knife it proceeds to the spinner, who, with a brush made for the purpose, straightens and dresses each parcel just before she begins to spin it.

FLAXMAN (—), Esq. R. A. and professor of sculpture in the Royal Academy, was born in 1754, and died at his house in Buckingham Street, Fitzroy Square, London, December 7th, 1826. The particulars of his interesting life we hope to be able to furnish from more authentic documents than have yet (May, 1827), been published, probably in our article SCULPTURE, before this work closes: at present nothing in detail has appeared.

Mr. Flaxman's fame, which on the Continent of Europe stands higher than that of any of our countrymen who have devoted themselves to the fine arts (with the exception, perhaps, of Sir Joshua Reynolds), rests principally on his designs after the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, Eschylus, Hesiod, and Dante. He is particularly mentioned by the illustrious Augustus Schlegel as a bright example among the few men of true genius of whom England at the present day can boast.' The dowager countess Spencer is said to be the patroness to whom the world is indebted for fostering his early genius.

The president of the Royal Academy, at a general assembly of the academicians, held in the month in which this distinguished member

His

of their body died, thus eulogises his memory. Mr. Flaxman's genius, in the strictest sense of the words, was original and inventive. taste led him, in early life, to the study of the noblest relics of antiquity, and a mind, though not then of classical education, of classic bias, urged him to the perusal of the best translations of the Greek philosophers and poets; till it became deeply imbued with those simple and grand sentiments which distinguish the productions of that favored people. When engaged in these mingling studies, the patronage of a lady of high rank, whose taste will now be remembered with her known goodness, gave birth to those unequalled compositions, from Homer and the Greek tragedians, which have so long been the admiration of Europe. These, perhaps, from their accuracy in costume, and the singular fidelity of the union between their characters and subjects, to minds unaccustomed to nice discrimination, may have conveyed the idea of too close an imitation of the Grecian art. Undoubtedly the elements of his style were founded on it; but only on its noblest principles on its deeper intellectual power-and not on the mere surface of its skill. He was still more the sculptor of sentiment than of form; and whilst the philosopher, the statesman, and the hero, were treated by him with appropriate dignity, not even in Raffaelle himself have the gentler feelings and sorrows of human nature been traced with more touching pathos, than in the various designs and models of this estimable man. The rest of Europe know only the productions of the earlier period of his fame; but those which form the highest efforts of his genius had their origin in nature only, and the sensibility and virtues of his mind. Like the greatest of modern painters, he delighted to trace, from the actions of familiar life, the lines of sentitiment and passion; and from the populous haunts, and momentary peacefulness of poverty and want, to form his inimitable groups of children and maternal tenderness; with those noble compositions from Holy Writ, as beneficent in motive as they are novel in design, which open new sources of invention from its simplest texts, and inculcate the duties of our faith. In piety, the minds of Michael Angelo and Flaxman were Congenial. I dare not assert their equality in art. The group of Michael and the Fallen Angel,' is a near approach to the grandeur of the former; and, sanctified as his memory is by time and glory, it gained no trivial homage in the mind of the English sculptor; whose 'shield of Achilles' his genius only could surpass."

In sepulchral monuments, we may add, Flaxman particularly excelled; and never, we be lieve, executed busts, except as portions of them. Westminster Abbey contains his Lord Mansfield; College, Oxford, his Sir William Jones, and St. Paul's several other of his most distinguished works.

Mr. Flaxman lived a very retired life, and professed himself a member of the Established Church, but is known to have adopted, with some zeal, the theological sentiments of baron Swedenborg. He married early in life, a lady whom he survived many years; and completed his