History
- Used since time immemorial for food, fibre and medicine, flax is (arguably) the oldest known fibre to man, if there has been anything better or even comparable, it has not survived.
- Because it was one of the first domesticated plants, flax is recognized as a foundation crop of modern civilization.
- archaeological evidence dates back to 5000 BC in the Nile valley in Egypt , 8000 BC in Swiss lake dwellings, and more recently dyed flax fibers have been found that date to 34,000 BC in a prehistori c cave in the Republic of Georgia
- Written records of the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations dating back to the 6th century B.C. mention flax cultivation. The literary works of Homer, Herodotus, Theophrastus and Pliny provide word references to flax and/or linen.
- Wool was not used as a spinnable fibre until about 4000 BC – they used the whole sheepskin
- Linen used for pretty much everything:
o Clothing, mummy wrappings, sails for ships**, armour (shields, gambesons, linothorax), bowstrings; “How audacious is life and how full of wickedness, for a plant to be grown for the purpose of **catching the winds and the storms … out of so small a seed springs a means of carrying the whole world to and fro” Pliny the Elder, first century AD; Natural History, Book XIX 1 p.423
o tents and awnings, fishing nets, household linens, rope, paper/books, art canvass, etc.
- considered so valuable - used to pay tithes in biblical times
- It is resistant to destruction by insects and the most absorbent fibre
- stronger when wet
- significant production in Russia , Ireland , Belgium , France and Egypt ; late 16C linen was shipped from many parts of Europe to Haarlem in Holland
- Hemp: While I personally still believe flax to be a superior fibre for fabric, I have seen many of the above facts also attributed to hemp and indeed, recent research shows that some of the artefacts found in archaeological digs that were originally determined to be linen may, in fact, be hemp, and that it is very difficult for even experts to be sure.
Out of period and into the New World
- Cultivated flax made its first appearance on the North American continent about four hundred years ago. Lois Hébert, thought to be the first farmer in Canada , brought the seed with him to “New France .”
- German settlers were the first major flax producers in ‘the colony of Pennsylvania
- Flax was one of the most important crops to early American farmers and to the economy of an emerging nation. Being grown in almost every state east of the Mississippi River in the 18C, it is now grown almost exclusively in North Dakota and Minnesota
- Cheap cotton was introduced by 1830 and caused linen production to decline almost to extinction until it was interrupted by the American Civil War in 1861, when it experienced resurgence for several years. In 1866 there were 100 scutching mills in Ontario
- However, flax cost more to produce than it could profit and there was no market for the increasingly inferior product, so that by the end of the century it was no longer an important fibre crop in North America .
- modern uses include biofuel, heating, 25% of US paper currency is linen, specialty papers (cigarette papers - the largest existing use of flax straw in North America), mulch, replacing fibreglass in auto parts and plastics (fibre content ranges from 8-40%).
- In Canada and the US
When does flax become linen? When it is spun into thread.
(source for cross section: Wikipedia)
Legend:
- 1. pith
- 2. protoxylem
- 3. xylem I
- 4. phloem I
- 5. Sclerenchyma (bast fibre)
- 6. cortex
- 7. epidermis
- The flax fibre grows in 15 to 40 bundles under the epidermis of the flax stem with anywhere from 10 to 40 fibres per bundle, held together by pectin around a pithy, hollow core. There are more fibres per bundle in the mid-stem compared to the base of the stem.
Seed to use
- Flax is grown either for seed and oil production or for fibre and there are strains/ species/ varieties better suited to one or the other but both have seeds and both have fibre. The better fibre variety is linum usitatissimum, varieties such as Evelin, Marylin
- Perennial flax seed (linum perenne) is not suitable for this purpose
- I believe sowing good quality seed (fresh each year) is important for quality fibre.
- www.richters.com (
- Heirloom Seed Project, Landis Valley Museum, PA, US$12/ lb plus s/h http://www.landisvalleymuseum.org/seeds.php
Preparation of ground
- best plot would be to dig over some fallow (grassed) plot or one seeded in the fall with something like alfalfa and fertilized with manure in the fall.
- Five to seven-year crop rotation is recommended to avoid soil borne diseases and exhausting all the nutrients. Best crop to follow is cereals, corn or some kind of bean or pulse or alfalpha, not after mustard or canola
- It will probably grow wherever you sow it, but it will grow better, taller and produce better
quality fibre if you give it what it needs/likes.
- You might want to consider how much you want to harvest and size of the plot to sow; I recommend starting small to begin with because harvesting it is a back-breaking job.
- That being said, families would cultivate an average of two acres of flax to meet their linen requirements; hired help often inherited ¼ acre of land – sufficient to clothe and bed one person for a year.
- I figured out once it would cost me over $1000 to sow an acre. The largest plot I have grown was 10’ x 25’.
Sowing
- Sow, broadcast, almost as early as the ground can be worked without being too wet and sticky. In Southern Ontario that is between late April and mid May, when the soil is 5ºC
- Easy germination; likes cool, wet spring to germinate.
- Flax requires full sun.
- Sow fairly thickly (allow 1 lb seeds for a 15’ x 15’ plot or from 1.3-1.5 grams per square foot).
late frosts may occur after flax emergence but they are unlikely to damage flax.
surface, good contact with the soil is important so it should be tamped down. Seed treatment
with a fungicide is frequently recommended where the soil remains cold and damp for
extended time but in rapidly warming soils such seed treatment is probably not necessary.
Watering
- Water at least twice a week in the first four weeks unless there is rain.
- There should be enough water in ground by the time plants mature
Weeding
- Weed once at about three weeks after seeding.
- The plants will be about 3-4” high and if stepped on will recover, when taller, they will not.
- Also, pulling weeds later may also pull or disturb the roots of the flax plants
Flowering
- Blue, pink or white flowers, depending on variety of seed, will begin around 8 weeks and last 2 - 3 weeks. Flowers are mostly self-pollinated
Harvesting
- Approximately between 80 and 100 days, when seed bolls are turning from green to brown and stems are turning yellow 1/3 up from the ground level
- I have read more recently that harvesting a little earlier, while seed pods are green and even some stems are still flowering, finer fibre is yielded; I am still experimenting with that
- Conversely, if left longer, until all the seed pods are dry and brown, the fibre will be coarser
- Harvesting is accomplished by pulling, not cutting, as the fibres go down into the roots
- It should be done when the weather is dry and warm. If you have to harvest wet, the flax must be dried with heat or fans inside (barn etc.)
Rippling
- Rippling is the process of removing the seed bolls to either save or discard, but to remove them from the straw.
- Rippling is normally done before retting, often in the field after harvesting, but I have read that it was sometimes the practice in Ireland to ret with the seed bolls not removed as it was believed that doing so injured the fibre; I have also read that the rippling step was skipped in order to save labour/time and money, but the seeds would have been lost. I believe that to be the exception rather than the rule.
- A ripple is something like a comb – or a single row of nails fixed into a block of wood. I use a perm ‘rake’ which has been adequate for a small crop.
Rivelling and Winnowing
- If the seeds are to be kept, the seed bolls are pounded by a riveler, and winnowed to separate them from the chaff.
Retting
- This is the most important operation in the production of quality fibre and is a process of partially rotting the plant material in order to free the fibre inside. Retting is done in one of two ways - dew retting or water retting; water retting may be accomplished in a slow moving stream or in some kind of pond (I use a kiddie pool). It is done in hot or at least warm weather.
- Use dirty water or put some dirt in it (like garden soil), it needs microbes. Rain water does not have microbes in it but as it sits in a barrel it will gradually get inoculated with microbes. You can spread up the process by adding something known to have a variety of microbes (e.g., soil, compost, old retting water, stagnant pond water, etc. I just learned (from SaskFlax in Saskatchewan
- The most complete description of how to know when flax retting is complete I have found is in Mavis Atton’s book, pages 46-50, including traditional ways as well as a scientific method.
- much more specific information is needed than there is time for today, to know when, how much, when to stop, (see bibliography)
- If retting is incomplete, it can be returned to the retting tank but if left retting too long, it gets over-retted, the fibres break down and are spoiled.
Grassing, drying and storage
- The flax straw must be laid out on the grass (grassing), stooked in bundles or hung to dry and stored if it is not to be further processed immediately.
- Stored properly, i.e. inside in dry conditions to avoid mould
Breaking
- Originally done by striking with a mallet, the flax break was developed in Holland or Denmark
- Now dry and brittle, the process of ‘crimping’ the straw to remove the plant material and extract the fibre from the plant can be completed. Must be done on a dry day, even if done inside under cover, or the humidity will cause more wasted fibre.
- It is important to spinners (I have not yet seen references in medieval works) to keep the straw/fibre with the tip ends together and the root ends together because some people prefer to spin from the tips and others from the butts, as with wool.
Scutching/Swingling
- The object of scutching is to remove as much as possible of the broken stalk/boon/shives from the fibre using a wooden scutching knife and board.
Hackling/heckling/hatcheling/hetcheling
- This is a combing process
- through the use of a series of at least three increasingly finer metal combs/hackles, the
remaining boon is removed from the fibres and the fibres are separated from each other
ready for spinning Most tow fibers should come from the bottom (short thick fibers) or top
(weak thin fibers) of the stems.
Spinning
- Many sources will tell you that linen MUST be spun S (whereas wool is most commonly spun Z) because the flax fibre naturally wants to twist in that direction. This is not cast is stone and both S and Z work fine
- You will need something to support your fibre to facilitate drafting, usually a distaff of some sort (pole, bat, cage, etc.); I also have done workshops where we learned how to use a towel, either on a table beside you, wrapped around your waist, or even over your shoulder
- Flax fibre is usually spun wet – i.e. wetting the fingers of the non drafting hand to smooth down the whiskers and ‘glue’ the fibres together – you would use a dipping bowl or saliva; hot water is deemed best (and was used with machinery) but cold or warm work fine
- It appears that most linen in the middle ages was not plied, but plying would give you an even stronger thread/yarn
- Historically, in Egypt
Weaving
- Weaving can be a challenge because the whiskeriness/hairiness of the linen will catch on
itself making the sheds difficult to open cleanly (especially with handspun)
- linen thread is inelastic and not very forgiving – it is not uncommon for warp threads to break
- humidity helps here, cool, damp sheds or basements were commonly used
- you can spray or ‘paint’ your warp threads with water or a flax gel if it helps; I was taught that if you warp up your loom well/precisely this is not necessary
Bibliography
“The Magic of Linen; Flax Seed to Woven Cloth by Linda Heinrich of BC (1986)“Flax Culture; from flower to fabric” by Mavis Atton of Ontario (1988)
“How to Weave Linen” by Edward Worst (1926) – has excellent detailed drawings of the various pieces of equipment needed.
“The Book of the Farm, Volume 2” by Henry Stevens
“Linen. Handspinning and Weaving” by Patricia Baines (1989)
SaskFlax website: http://www.saskflax.com/flaxhistory.html#fiae
Woolgatherers webcam – picture journal of growing flax http://www.woolgatherers.com/id106.htm
The Hermitage http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCeemLKvLOw&feature=related etc.
email: wpmaurice@csolve.net
