The Tractor Helps to Develop a New Industry
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OR some years past, the position of I our linen industry has been depenlent, to a large extent, on supplies of lax from abroad, notably from Russia. In view of its importance in var, steps have been taken to stimulate some production and, as a result, some housands of acres have, this year, seen harvested in England.
The crop is not difficult to grow, and s actually one that does well as a rule in newly ploughed grassland, so we nay expect to see an extension. If he plant be allowed to ripen, its seed s, of course, linseed—a valuable feedrag stuff. For fibre purposes, however, he plant is harvested at an earlier tage.
The successful reintroduction of the rop into English agriculture is ounded largely on the fact that powerarming appliances are now available to andle some phases of the work that ;mild otherwise call for an impractieble amount of hand labour. In paricular, attention has been devoted to he production of power-driven flax inders.
In order to secure the greatest possible length of fibre, it is essential to pull the crop and not to cut it, as in the case of cereals. The flax binder, of which examples of Belgian make have, this season, been operated in this country, employs a rotating wheel set almost at right angles to the ground. Around this wheel passes a heavy end
less belt, the crop being gripped between the belt and the rim of the wheel and dragged out The same belt, passing over jockey pulleys, delivers the fibre in an endless stream to a binding table, incorporating standard Massey-Harris binding mechanism. The width of pull is 18 ins.
After a curing period in stooks in the field, the crop is forwarded to the mills for manufacture. The new industry, which should be valuable to the individual farmer and the nation alike, could not have been contemplated as a commercial proposition in the absence of such labour-saving machinery as is now available.