The celebrated Courtrai flax of Belgium is the most valuable staple in the market, on account of its fineness, strength and particularly bright colour. There the flax is dried in the field, and housed or stacked during the winter succeeding its growth, and in the spring of the following year it is retted in crates sunk in the sluggish waters of the river Lys. After the process has proceeded a certain length, the crates are withdrawn, and the sheaves taken out and stooked. It is thereafter once more tied up, placed in the crates, and sunk in the river to complete the retting process; but this double steeping is not invariably practised. When finally taken out, it is unloosed and put up in cones, instead of being grassed, and when quite dry it is stored for some time previous to undergoing the operation of scutching. In all operations the greatest care is taken, and the cultivators being peculiarly favoured as to soil, climate and water, Courtrai flax is a staple of unapproached excellence.
An experiment made by Professor Hodges of Belfast on 7770 lb of air-dried flax yielded the following results. By rippling he separated 1946 ℔ of bolls which yielded 910 ℔ of seed. The 5824 lb (52 cwt.) of flax straw remaining lost in steeping 13 cwt., leaving 39 cwt. of retted stalks, and from that 6 cwt. 1 qr. 2 ℔ (702 ℔) of finished flax was procured. Thus the weight of the fibre was equal to about 9% of the dried flax with the bolls, 12% of the boiled straw, and over 16% of the retted straw. One hundred tons treated by Schenck’s method gave 33 tons bolls, with 27.50 tons of loss in steeping; 32.13 tons were separated in scutching, leaving 5.90 tons of finished fibre, with 1.47 tons of tow and pluckings. The following analysis of two varieties of heckled Belgian flax is by Dr Hugo Müller (Hoffmann’s Berichte über die Entwickelung der chemischen Industrie):—
| Ash | 0.70 | 1.32 |
| Water | 8.65 | 10.70 |
| Extractive matter | 3.65 | 6.02 |
| Fat and wax | 2.39 | 2.37 |
| Cellulose | 82.57 | 71.50 |
| Intercellular substance and pectose bodies | 2.74 | 9.41 |
According to the determinations of Julius Wiesner (Die Rohstoffe des Pflanzenreiches), the fibre ranges in length from 20 to 140 centimetres, the length of the individual cells being from 2.0 to 4.0 millimetres, and the limits of breadth between 0.012 and 0.025 mm., the average being 0.016 mm.
Among the circumstances which have retarded improvement both in the growing and preparing of flax, the fact that, till comparatively recent times, the whole industry was conducted only on a domestic scale has had much influence. At no very remote date it was the practice in Scotland for every small farmer and cotter not only to grow “lint” or flax in small patches, but to have it retted, scutched, cleaned, spun, woven, bleached and finished entirely within the limits of his own premises, and all by members or dependents of the family. The same practice obtained and still largely prevails in other countries. Thus the flax industry was long kept away from the most powerful motives to apply to it labour-saving devices, and apart from the influence of scientific inquiry for the improvement of methods and processes. As cotton came to the front, just at the time when machine-spinning and power-loom weaving were being introduced, the result was that in many localities where flax crops had been grown for ages, the culture gradually drooped and ultimately ceased. The linen manufacture by degrees ceased to be a domestic industry, and began to centre in and become the characteristic factory employment of special localities, which depended, however, for their supply of raw material primarily on the operations of small growers, working, for the most part, on the poorer districts of remote thinly populated countries. The cultivation of the plant and the preparation of the fibre have therefore, even at the present day, not come under the influence (except in certain favoured localities) of scientific knowledge and experience.
Cultivation.—The approximate number of acres (1905) under cultivation in the principal flax-growing countries is as follows:—
| Russia | 3,500,000 | acres. |
| Caucasia | 450,000 | ” |
| Austria | 175,000 | ” |
| Italy | 120,000 | ” |
| Poland | 95,000 | ” |
| Rumania | 80,000 | ” |
| Germany | 75,000 | ” |
| France | 65,000 | ” |
| Belgium | 53,000 | ” |
| Hungary | 50,000 | ” |
| Ireland | 46,000 | ” |
| Holland | 38,000 | ” |
Although the amount grown in Russia exceeds considerably the combined quantity grown in the rest of the above-mentioned countries, the quality of the fibre is inferior. The fibre is cultivated in the Russian provinces of Archangel, Courland, Esthonia, Kostroma, Livonia, Novgorod, Pskov, Smolensk, Tver, Vyatka, Vitebsk, Vologda and Yaroslav or Jaroslav, while the bulk of the material is exported through the Baltic ports. Riga and St Petersburg (including Cronstadt) are the principal ports, but flax is also exported from Revel, Windau, Pernau, Libau, Narva and Königsberg. Sometimes it is exported from Archangel, but this port is frost-bound for a great period of the year; moreover, most of the districts are nearer to the Baltic.
The following Prices, taken from the Dundee Year Books, show the Change in Price of a few well-known Varieties.