Change the seed every season. This will greatly increase the quantity,
and improve the quality. In nothing else is it more important. In
Ireland, the great flax-growing country of the world, they always sow
foreign seed when it can be procured. American seed is preferred, and
brings the highest price. Experiments with different seeds, on varieties
of soils, are much needed. Changing from all the soils and latitudes of
our country would be useful. The general rule, however, as with all
seeds, is to change from colder to warmer regions.
_Soils._--The best are strong alluvial soils. Any soil good for a garden
is good for flax. As much clay as will allow soil soon to become dry and
easily to be made mellow, is desirable; black loam, with hard, poor
clay-subsoil, is also good. Mellow, friable soils are not more important
to any other crop than to flax. Land must not be worked when too wet.
The land should be rich from a previous year's manuring. Salt, lime,
ashes, and plaster, are good applications to flax after it has come up.
On light soil with bad tillage, when the flax was so poor that the
cultivator was about to plow it up, the application of three bushels of
plaster, in the morning when the dew was on, produced a larger yield of
better flax from an acre than adjoining growers got from two acres of
their best land.