ntire loss of seed--the loss, in fact, of the greatest
inducement for renewing the culture of the plant. In Ireland the
case, I believe, will be the same, though much of the soil of that
country, being mossy, is more favourable to the growth of flax than
that of England or Scotland; yet even there it will be found
impracticable to raise good flax and good seed from the same piece of
ground at the same time; and if the seed is not good, the oil-cake
will be bad."--(Vol. iii. p. 1046.)

Among the arguments in favour of the extensive culture of flax, now urged
by so many, we are sorry to see a scientific one lately put forth by our
friend Dr Kane of Dublin, and which has been much vaunted and relied upon
by himself, and by those for whose benefit the opinion was propounded. The
proposal is, it will be recollected, to carry off the stalk of the flax
crop, and to convert the seed into manure. This is the same thing as
carrying off the straw of a corn crop, and eating or otherwise converting
the grain into manure upon the farm. Every one knows that carrying off the
straw will exhaust the land, as will also carrying off the stalk of the
lint. But, says Dr Kane, I have analysed the _steeped_ and _dressed_ flax,
and find that it contains very little of what the plant peculiarly draws
from the soil. This is left for the most part in the pond in which the
flax is steeped, or at the mill where the flax is dressed. Therefore, to
carry off the flax is not _necessarily_ to exhaust the soil. You have only
to collect the _shows_ of the flax mill, and pump out the water from the
steeping hole, and apply both to the land, and you restore to it all that
the crop has taken off.

Now there is a fallacy in supposing that all that is taken from the land
would in this way be restored--one which the advocates of this
non-exhausting view are of course not anxious to discover; but, supposing
the result and conclusions correct, what are they worth in practice? It is
only a little bit of fireside farming. What practical good has come out of
it? Put all the steeping water upon the land! Have any of the members of
the flax societies tried this? Then let them tell us how it is to be
done--what it cost--what was the result and the profit of the application.
They use this prescription as an argument to induce men to introduce an
exhausting culture, and they take no means to introduce _first_ a general
employment of thos