Bavaria. Very little is exported. The quality varies considerably, being, in some cases, pretty fine; but, owing chiefly to want of skill in the manipulation, the bulk is inferior.

France produces annually some 25,000 to 30,000 tons, of which a portion of the finer qualities is exported. The northern departments, along the river Lys, are the best adapted to its culture, and some of what is grown in them rivals the Belgian in quality. The average value, at present, is about £70 per ton. In Brittany, and other districts where hand-spinning prevails among the peasantry, the quantity grown for that purpose is considerable. In Poitou, Anjou, Touraine, and other midland and southern provinces, the crop is still cultivated, though to a less extent than formerly.

The Iberian peninsula, possessing so great a variety of climate and soil, is in many places well suited to this culture. Galicia and the Basque Provinces are its chief seat in Spain; Zaragoza produces some of fair quality. Segovia, Leon, Huesca, and Aragon, have all shown specimens at the Exhibition, from which, however, it is manifest that the culture and preparation are in the rudest state. Portugal showed some fine, short straw, but the samples of fibre were soft and weak.

In the Mediterranean countries little flax is, at present grown, and that chiefly for home use. In the rich plains of Italy hemp is produced with more success than flax, the fertile soil and great heat giving a luxuriant growth of strong, hard fibre, fit for cordage and other coarse purposes, but unsuited for the range of fabrics to which flax is generally applied. In Piedmont, Asti and Montferrat furnish a considerable quantity, but of indifferent quality. The Island of Sardinia grows much flax, which is used for home manufacture, or sold to Genoese merchants.

Holland ranks high for the excellence of her flax, and with her neighbour, Belgium, was early celebrated for her linen manufacture; the term brown hollands being to this day applied to certain kind of fabric made largely in Ireland. About 6000 to 8000 tons of fibre are annually produced, and chiefly consumed in England and Ireland. The quality is very good, and strongly resembles Irish flax.

Belgium occupies the same position as to quality that Russia does as to quantity, the Belgian flax being, indisputably, the finest in the world. From 20,000 to 25,000 tons are annually produced—a large proportion being of sorts that sell from £90 to £140 per ton. Great Britain, Ireland, and France, are the greatest consumers of this fine flax, although a considerable quantity is retained for manufacture in Belgium, where, among other fabrics made from it, is the exquisite lace of Brussels and Mechlin, the thread of which is in some cases worth double its weight in gold. It is in the two Flanders that the crop is chiefly grown; but in Brabant, Hainault, Namur, and other provinces, it is also to be found in large quantities. The fertile district extending from Ghent to Antwerp, and known as the Pays de Waes, furnishes more fine flax than all the rest of Europe. Although Belgium possesses peculiar natural advantages for the culture of the plant, much of this success must be attributed to the extreme skill and care of the cultivators, who have attained absolute perfection in the treatment of the crop; and it is very probable that, were the same pains taken elsewhere, some favoured districts of other countries might rival Belgium in this branch of husbandry.

Of our own countries, Great Britain furnishes but a small quantity of flax, while Ireland produces a much larger proportion. In Yorkshire, the Eastern counties, Devonshire, and Somersetshire, some is grown, though, with the exception of Yorkshire, to an unimportant extent. In the south of Scotland a little is also grown. But in Ireland, in which, from a very early period, the linen manufacture has been successfully prosecuted, flax culture is now progressing rapidly, and presents an important feature in Irish agriculture.

The growth has increased during the last four years from 53,863 to 138,609 acres, which last year’s statistical returns show to have yielded 34,000 tons of fibre, and it is calculated that the value of the crop is not much under £2,000,000. This remarkable increase, where the article has to compete with foreign flax admitted free of duty, shows the natural elements of its successful production to be present to a large extent. And, lately, in consequence of the pains taken to introduce the best systems of culture, and the carrying out of new inventions for the after-processes, the quality of the fibre, and the manner in which it is prepared for market, are both improving. Irish flax sells at prices varying from £35 to £100 per ton. The province of Ulster has hitherto produced nearly all the flax grown in Ireland; but through the exertions of the Royal Belfast Flax Improvement Society to spread it over the other provinces whose natural capabilities are equal, or in many cases superior, it bids fair to be generally grown throughout the island, as, while in 1848 only 2860 acres were grown without the bounds of the northern province, in 1851 there were 14,893 acres. This extension must be looked upon as a great boon to the Irish farmers, who have been suffering so severely from the change of duties on other agricultural produce, aggravated by the total loss of their main crop, the potato, and the desolating effects of famine and pestilence.

The success attained in Ireland has naturally led the sister countries to bestir themselves, and there is every reason to believe that flax will soon take its place among other crops in all the districts of Great Britain which are so circumstanced as to allow of its being profitably cultivated. In many parts of England some flax is grown, though, in some instances, more for the seed than the fibre. In the development of Egyptian agriculture, begun by Mehemet Ali and continued by Ibrahim, flax was not forgotten, and a number of scutch-mills, to be driven by steam-engines, and other necessary implements, were obtained from Belfast; persons acquainted with the several processes were hired from the north of Ireland, and the result of these measures has been a considerable improvement in the quality and handling of Egyptian flax.

On the continent of America, although much land is suitable for flax, and the climate of many localities favourable to the maturing of an average quality of fibre, but little has as yet been grown. The great obstacle has been the sparsity of population and high price of labour. In the United States the crop is grown in different districts. About the Ohio, and in the Western States bordering on the Mississippi and its tributary streams, in their rich alluvion, a large breadth is grown for the seed, which is consumed in the oil-mills, and the cake made from it forms an item in the imports of American produce at Liverpool. In New York upwards of 40,000 acres are to be grown, partly for the seed alone, but a proportion also for the fibre, since the population is less scanty, and constant immigration maintains the wages of labour at a lower rate than in the Western States. More attention has recently been directed to economising the fibre. An individual from Belfast has settled in Wisconsin.