and like almost every kind of Má, it yields oil. Flax-It would seem from various English and Chinese Dictionaries, that flax is found in China, but of the existence of Linum usitatissimum, I cannot discover the slightest evidence. It seems to have been confounded with the last named plant. The above are all the facts respecting the Má which I have been able to glean from native authors, the deficiency can only be supplied by personal observation. The Chú Má of this place can be inspected and described when in flower. This imperfect account of the plants producing the fibre from which the grass-cloth of commerce is manufactured (evidently a misnomer,) would be yet more defective were the Koh plant to be wholly omitted. It is described as a creeper, which every year springs from an immense root, and grows from ten to thirty feet in length, clinging to trees when within reach. The root is purple on the outside, and white within, it is made into flour like arrowroot. I have found it an useful substitute for the Maranta arundinacea. Its leaves have three points, they are long, green on the face, and bright below. In August it has blended purple flowers. The fibre is strongly adherent to the stalk, and is only loosened by boiling it in water. It is then taken off with the finger nails, exposed for a long time to running water, and beaten with mallets. It undergoes the same processes as the Má, but seems to require more beating and boiling: wooden utensils make it dark. The Koh, like the Má, has been manufactured from high antiquity, and is found throughout the same extensive region in which the latter abounds. The cloth made from it is yellow, and as fine as ordinary grass cloth, it cannot be bleached white; in summer it is much worn by respectable Chinese. The best brought to Ningpo, is called Háinán Kóh cloth, and is perhaps manufactured on the island of Háinán. If by the Kunkhura you mean the Urtica tenacissima of Roxburgh, it is probable that it is a different plant from either variety of the Má. As the hindrance to the manufacture of the former is owing to the difficulty attending the peeling of the fibre, would it not be well to treat it, as the Chinese do the Koh, viz. by boiling? If the Kunkhura should prove useless, may not the catalogue of Dr. Wallich, which contains forty-seven species of Urticea, include the Má, the Kóh, or an available substitute? The observations of Dr. Roxburgh, on the various specimens of fibrous vegetables, the produce of India, may perhaps be consulted with advantage in connection with the Chinese account of the Má. Besides the enclosed, I shall only be able to send you some seeds of the Chú Má. There can be no doubt that if seeds of the proper kind be procured from China, the plant may be introduced into India if it be not indigenous to her soil. To secure success it

would perhaps be well to procure them from each of the open ports of China. From Canton is exported the finest cloth manufactured in the empire. This superiority the Chinese attribute to the greater still of the Canton workmen. Foreigners have referred that fibre to two plants, Cannabis sativa, and Sida tilæfolia (Dr. Abel.)* From Shanghai is exported the fine strong fibre you have referred to, the Urtica nivea It was through the efforts of the H. E. I. Company of Canton, that seeds were procured and forwarded to England. By referring to the 47th page of the 72nd Vol. of the Philosophical Transactions, there will be found a paper on Chinese Hemp by Mr. Furgusson, and a notice of the experiments tried with the seeds in England, (vid. Encyc. Brittannica.) Had they possessed the hints here extracted from Chinese writers on this plant, the experiments of the gentlemen named in the above paper would probably have been more successful. Should the Society wish to pursue the subject further, some useful information may be obtained from a series of sketches, 120 in number, illustrating the culture and manufacture of grass-cloth, by Tinqua, 12 New China street, Canton, a translation of the text accompanying the drawings may be found in the Chinese Repository for May, 1847. It was the special province of Monsieur Hedde, of the late embassy from France to China, to collect facts and specimens illustrative of the agriculture and manufactures of China. The result of his observations have, I believe, been published in Paris, containing a notice of one variety of the Má. Osbeck, a pupil and countryman of Linnæus, and Dr. Abel, Naturalist of Lord Amherst's embassy, have noticed the Ma. The Agricultural Society of Bengal, aiming to develope the industrial resources of a great empire, and thereby to improve its inhabitants, has a claim upon the services of all who can contribute in any manner to its objects. Allow me to assure the Society, that I shall take great pleasure in responding to any further calls you may have occasion to make. Ningpo, June 1st, 1848.

• It has also been referred to Corchorus capsularis. Vide Bennett's Wanderings in N. S. Wales and China,-EDS.

FLAX-METHOD OF CULTIVATION.

WILLIAM NEWCOMB, Pittstown, Rensselaer County,

The importance of this crop to the farmer has but just begun to be appreciated, and as it has a few peculiarities in its culture, I shall attempt to give the results of my experience for the last sixteen years. I have been extensively engaged in the raising and managing of flax, and have drawn the following conclusions: First, the soil best adapted to its culture is a rich loam; but it will succeed well on almost any soil, except sand, provided it be high or hilly land; it will not grow well on low lands, on borders of streams or rivers; it would not probably succeed oftener than once in ten years, for causes I shall presently state. The seed being small, it must not be placed deep in the ground. I would recommend the ground to be well plowed, and thoroughly pulverized by dragging before sowing, and very lightly dragged or bushed in, after sowing. The earlier sown in the spring after the ground is fit to work, the better. One bushel of seed to the acre is the best amount of seed to ensure a good yield of seed and lint; if a less quantity of seed be sown, the quantity of seed would be increased, but the quantity of lint would be, lessened, and if a little more seed be sown, the lint would be increased but the seed would be lessened. On low lands the flax is subject to mildew or rust, which is of two kinds, the red rust, which destroys both seed and lint, and the black rust, which affects the stem of the flax and destroys the lint; this is the great enemy of flax growing; but on elevated or hilly lands it is very seldom attacked with either of these kinds of rust. Flax succeeds best after corn or potatoes, or such crops as have been cultivated the previous year so as to destroy weeds. The ground cannot be too rich, yet it must not be made so by manuring the flax ground with manures filled with seeds of grass and weeds, which would spring up and destroy the crop. Therefore I would not recommend manuring the flax ground the season it is sown, except with the following stimulants and manures, to wit: to each acre of land apply one bushel plaster of Paris, one bushel of fine western sal:, 1 bushel of wood ashes, 1 bushel of slaked lime, of course varying these manures according to the nature of your soil. If it be a light loam mixed with gravel or sand, leave out the lime; if it be a tenacious soil bordering on clay, or nearly so, be sure and put on the lime. The salt and ashes in the quantity mentioned are not only manures, but a preventive to the operations of the worm, which

is often very destructive to flax. Plaster is a strong stimulant, and is invaluable on dry soils by its atractive principles for moisture. The expense of getting in a crop of flax is about the same as oats. The expense of hand pulling usually is $3 per acre; thrashing the seed and cleaning, $1 per acre; dew rotting and taking it up, $1 per acre, and dressing at the mills from $2 to $2.50 per hundred lbs. of flax. The average quantity of seed raised is 8 bushels per acre, and the average quantity of flax, 250 lbs. per acre; although this has frequently been more than doubled both in seed and lint. The average price of seed is $1.25 and average price of lint, 9 cts. per lb.

I now state from the statistics of 1845, that the number of acres of flax sown in Rensselaer county was 1,793 acres, and the quantity of flax or lint, 282,690 lbs., an average of 150 lbs. to the acre; but that year was considered as a partial failure in the flax crops. I have raised from 10 acres up to 50 acres yearly, and in that year the yield was less than any previous or succeeding year. In 1847, raised sixteen acres of flax, proI ducing a little over $800 as gross receipts. From my book of that year I copy the following results of one acre I surveyed, of about the average of the field. Weight of flax and sced before thrashing, 3,849 lbs. ; weight of flax after the seed was off, 2,664 lbs.; weight of flax after it was dew rotted, 2,009 lbs. ; weight of lint when dressed, 318 lbs. ; quantity of clean seed, 13 bushels, 1 pt., and 14 bushels of yellow seed.

Expenses of seed, interest on land, at $50 per acre, and every expense attending the flax, $14.75 This, however, is less than ordinary, as I own a mill for dressing the flax. This season one acre of flax has produced 10 bushels of seed and 548 lbs. of flax.

Water Rotting.

There are two methods of rotting flax, one by spreading it thinly and evenly on our meadows, and is called dew rotting. It is considered sufficiently rotted when, by rubbing the stem and breaking it with the hand, the hurl or lint easily separates from the woody portion of the stem. This is the common process and requires but little judgment to do it properly. The other method is, by immersing it in water, and as I have rotted by this process many hundred thousand pounds, I may be excused in being a little more particular, more especially as it requires more exercise of

judgment, and is a process less understood, and one which much enhances the value of the lint when done. I have been offered an advance of 25 per cent. on the present price of dew rotted flax for water rotted, and, it may be asked, what better is water rotted flax than dew rotted? In answer I state that many articles manufactured from flax are required by government to be made from water rotted flax or hemp, and that the cloth and twines thus manufactured will withstand in warm climates the mildew or rotting, which dew rotted cloth is subject to. After water rotting flax, for an experiment, I have left lying on the ground spread, a few bundles for months, without injury to the flax, when dew rotted flax would have been entirely lost. In water rotting flax, it is important that the flax be entirely immersed in water and kept under by heavy weights, and secondly, when sufficiently rotted, it must not remain in the water. It is rotted much better in still water or vats, than in running streams; and I cannot perhaps do better, to give the idea of what ought to be done, than to describe my own pit, which is about 60 feet long by 20 wide and 5 feet deep, which will contain nearly 20 tons of flax in the stem, with a gate at the lower part of the pit, to draw off the water from the flax, and a gate from the pond above to fill the pit with water. The flax is first placed on poles laid on the ground, regularly as it would be in the barn, (I do not think it of any importance to stand it up,) and when the pit is filled and the weights placed on the flax, let in sufficient water to cover the flax. In warm weather from the 6th to the 10th day fermentation will have taken place and the flax will rise above the water and remain a few hours, after which it sinks and the process of rotting is then finished. But this process is retarded when new water is added, and then the only way to determine is by the stem. When the lint slips freely from the stem, by drawing it through the fingers, leaving the stem free from the fibre, it is then sufficiently rotted and the vat let off, and the flax immediately drawn out and spread on the land for drying. Of course all flax before being immersed in water must be well bound in bundles with strong bands, the size is not important, but if very large, it makes very heavy handling while wet. I have rotted in this one pit, during the summer and fall 60,000 pounds, and as I observed, the warmer the weather and the water, the sooner the flax rots; and I have had a pit of 3,000 lbs. rot in five days, and I have had, later in the season, the same quantity to remain in the water for 30 days and not be over rotted, and even with all the directions that can be given in this process of rotting, constant watching is necessary and some experience before it can be done safely and with certainty. The flax crop I consider less