What is the flax plant? Perhaps your teacher will buy some flax seed which you can plant in the school garden. The Pleasant Valley girls did, and it grew quite tall. Then you can really see how the growing plant looks. Your teacher will have some dry flax to show you. Do you know how a waving field of wheat or oats looks? Flax is planted thickly when it is grown for its fiber. It comes up straight like the wheat and does not branch. When it is planted for its seed, it is not planted so thickly because it must have more room to branch and bear seed. Flaxseed is used for many purposes. Flaxseed, or linseed, oil is used for paints and varnishes, and even for food, in some countries. Like cotton seed, the dry cake, or meal, left is a valuable food for cattle. Has mother ever used the oil or the meal for anything at home?
The flax plant as it grows is from 20 to 40 inches in height. It has lovely little blue flowers on the stems which branch at the top. Uncle John knew a little girl at Pleasant Valley who thought the flax came from the little brown seed pods on top, just as the cotton comes from the seed pod, or boll. It does not; for the flax fiber is the part of the long stem which grows just inside of the outside woody portion. So, you see flax fibers can be from 20 to 40 inches long, according to the height of the plant. The wonderful part of the story is how the fibers are removed from the long stems.
How is flax grown? Flax requires much hand labor in its care while growing. The women and children in Europe weed it and care for it, on their hands and knees. When it is full grown and the flowers have come and gone, the tiny seed pods grow where the flowers have fallen, just like the seed pods your peonies or poppies grow. Before the seeds are quite ripe, and while the stalks are brownish yellow, the flax is ready to be pulled. It is not cut like wheat with the reaper and gathered into bundles, but must be pulled up by the roots. This is done in clear weather, by hand. The pulled flax is laid on the ground with the roots together and the stalks parallel. The stalks are then bound something like the wheat, and stacked in stooks. You have often seen oats or wheat so stacked.
Courtesy of United States Department of Agriculture.
Fig. 104.—The stooks of flax.
Courtesy of Speyer School, New York.
Fig. 105.—This little girl is rippling flax by hand at school. Can you see the seeds?