“A Paper Mill near German Town doth stand,
So that the Flax, which first springs from the Land,
First Flax, then Yarn and then they must begin,
To weave the same, which they took pains to spin.
Also, when on our backs it is well worn,
Some of the same remains, Ragged and Torn;
Then of those Rags our Paper it is made,
Which in the process of time doth waste and fade;
So what comes from the Earth, appeareth plain,
The same in Time returns to Earth again.”
Poem by Richard Frame, printed by William Bradford in 1692 in his “a Short Description of Pennsylvania”
Working with Flax- Harvesting and Rippling in preparation for Retting
The historically important parts of the flax plant are the long flax fibers which run the length of the stem from the root to the flowers. These fibers provide support for the growing plant and are located between the thin outer bark and the woody xylem (vascular material of the plant) and are held together with a natural glue or pectin. One type of pectin holds the fiber cells into bundles and another attaches the bundles to the bark and core of the stem. Both of these pectins are susceptible to bacterial digestion, which is accomplished during retting. It is the pectin like material remaining after retting that “glues” the fibers together to give linen thread its strength.
Harvesting the flax fiber requires a series of steps to remove the woody and plant pulp material without damaging the long and delicate fibers of flax.
Most flax plants mature in 90-120 days. There are three stages in the ripening of flax, green, yellow and brown. Flax harvested at the yellow stage seems most suitable for fiber production. Flax that is harvested green produces fine but very weak fibers while flax that is over ripened and brown has strong but brittle stems and produces a high proportion of the undesirable tow or short fibers.
After retting the flax undergoes three additional steps to achieve a fiber which can be spun and worked into textiles. These three steps include:
Breaking- or separating small amounts of plant fiber into fibrous pith and bark.
Scutching-to remove the bits of woody stem
Hackling –or combing the line fibers to separate the long fibers from the short
tow and align the fibers for further processing.
Flax is harvested when it has attained its full growth and has begun to die off or is at the yellow stage. After harvesting it is stacked or hung to dry out thoroughly before being rippled or cleaned of its leaves, excess vegetable matter such as leaves and small side stems, and seed pods
After the flax has been rippled, it needs to be retted or rotted to allow microbacteria within the plant and soil (depending on the type of retting process) to consume the pectin holding the xylem or soft core and the woody outer part of the stem so that the long flax fibers which lie in between are freed.
Harvesting Our Flax
Since flax dies off from the bottom up, we simplified harvesting by withholding water for the last week, or until the plants were almost entirely yellow and the seed heads had finished developing. Just prior to harvesting we soaked the ground so that we could pull the plants up with the root balls still attached. After knocking off the excess dirt and loose roots, we stacked the stems in loose bundles of similar length, tied them together just above the root ball and hung the flax bundles to dry in a sunny, weather protected spot with good air circulation.
Once the flax was thoroughly dry we needed to ripple it or remove the seeds and leaves.
Rippling can be accomplished with a flax ripple, a comb like tool consisting of a row of 20-30 vertical steel pins fixed in a piece of wood and resembling a rake, by beating with a flail, or being walked on. All of these processes facilitate the removal of the seed and begin to break down the tough outer woody skin of the flax stems. True rippling is the process in which a bundle of flax straw is pulled through the ripple from the root to the stem. This process is repeated several times working from the root outward to the tip of the bundle with the bundle being turned each time to assure that all sides of the straw are exposed to the tines or teeth of the rippling tool. Seed pods fall out easily and if the rippling is done on a sheet, the seed pods can be gathered, crushed and blown to remove the hulls and the seed used for replanting.
Since we were working very small scale using available tools, for rippling we experimented with a set of Louet mini combs with two rows of teeth at 8-10/inch and a dog rake used for flicking fleece. This dog rake has a single row of teeth set at ¼” intervals. Since our flax is quite fine and only about 2 ½ feet in length, the spacing on this comb turned out to be too wide and not enough of the flax stayed in between the teeth to remove any seeds or leaves. This led us to the Louet mini combs.
The Louet mini-combs removed the majority of the seed pods along with most of the leaves and dried flowers and stems as well as beginning to pull off a bit of the outer bark. Since we had tied the flax into many small bundles of a similar length, the routine became; thwack the head of the bundle on the table to loosen everything up, make two long root to tip strokes followed by a series of 4 short strokes working down from tip to root and rotating the bundle with every stroke, and then a final thwack to remove any loose leaves, seeds or fiber.
Because of the mini combs’ efficiency at removing outer fiber and leaves, it was necessary to clean out the combs after each bundle. Using two combs in rotation helped as it allowed one to be cleaned out with a nail file while the other was being used for rippling.
The end result of the rippling was many small bundles of clean wooden stems which are ready for retting. We also managed to collect about 1 1/4 cups of clean harvested flax seed.
Botanical Notes for flax plants
Flax can be grown in any temperate climate and has a growing season of approximately 90-120 days.
It does not require a lot of ground and flax plants are generally grown close together to prevent branching and produce a single straight stem.
It requires a deep rich soil, heavy nitrogen and quickly depletes the nutrients from the land where it is grown. ( We added a heavy nitrogen fertilizer to our pots three times in the 120 day growing period.)
Weeds can cause the plant to grow sporadically and cause branching so flax must be constantly weeded in the early sprouting and growth stages. However if planted correctly, weeding is unnecessary as there is no space for unwanted plants. Apparently weeding approaches varied depending on the size of the flax field and the amount of labor available. In the early Virginia colonies, settlers were allotted two acres per family. This being considered the optimum size of flax field that one family could intensively cultivate and manage. Originally the same fields were planted repeatedly until they failed due to nitrogen depletion of the soil. Later, the principle of crop rotation began to emerge and fields were either allowed to lie fallow or were planted with alternate crops such as cow peas to re-introduce nitrogen. However flax, unlike tobacco never became the money making crop which the Virginia settlers had hoped it would be and the cultivation of flax gradually decreased until it was only grown as a side line “necessary” crop by those unable to pay for imported linen for clothing. Later, cotton proved a more reliable cash crop.
Cutting the flax plant damages the fibers and results in a loss of fiber length.
Modern flax plants are cut by machine and the linen is not as strong as that produced in earlier times.
Linen seed can be processed into linseed oil, a component of ink, lamp fuel, cattle feed, wood treatments and paint.
Other than ramie, flax has the greatest tensile strength of any natural fiber and is 20% stronger when wet.
Flax straw was often used as bedding and repels fleas and lice.
So that the Flax, which first springs from the Land,
First Flax, then Yarn and then they must begin,
To weave the same, which they took pains to spin.
Also, when on our backs it is well worn,
Some of the same remains, Ragged and Torn;
Then of those Rags our Paper it is made,
Which in the process of time doth waste and fade;
So what comes from the Earth, appeareth plain,
The same in Time returns to Earth again.”
Poem by Richard Frame, printed by William Bradford in 1692 in his “a Short Description of Pennsylvania”
Working with Flax- Harvesting and Rippling in preparation for Retting
The historically important parts of the flax plant are the long flax fibers which run the length of the stem from the root to the flowers. These fibers provide support for the growing plant and are located between the thin outer bark and the woody xylem (vascular material of the plant) and are held together with a natural glue or pectin. One type of pectin holds the fiber cells into bundles and another attaches the bundles to the bark and core of the stem. Both of these pectins are susceptible to bacterial digestion, which is accomplished during retting. It is the pectin like material remaining after retting that “glues” the fibers together to give linen thread its strength.
Harvesting the flax fiber requires a series of steps to remove the woody and plant pulp material without damaging the long and delicate fibers of flax.
Most flax plants mature in 90-120 days. There are three stages in the ripening of flax, green, yellow and brown. Flax harvested at the yellow stage seems most suitable for fiber production. Flax that is harvested green produces fine but very weak fibers while flax that is over ripened and brown has strong but brittle stems and produces a high proportion of the undesirable tow or short fibers.
After retting the flax undergoes three additional steps to achieve a fiber which can be spun and worked into textiles. These three steps include:
Breaking- or separating small amounts of plant fiber into fibrous pith and bark.
Scutching-to remove the bits of woody stem
Hackling –or combing the line fibers to separate the long fibers from the short
tow and align the fibers for further processing.
Flax is harvested when it has attained its full growth and has begun to die off or is at the yellow stage. After harvesting it is stacked or hung to dry out thoroughly before being rippled or cleaned of its leaves, excess vegetable matter such as leaves and small side stems, and seed pods
After the flax has been rippled, it needs to be retted or rotted to allow microbacteria within the plant and soil (depending on the type of retting process) to consume the pectin holding the xylem or soft core and the woody outer part of the stem so that the long flax fibers which lie in between are freed.
Harvesting Our Flax
Since flax dies off from the bottom up, we simplified harvesting by withholding water for the last week, or until the plants were almost entirely yellow and the seed heads had finished developing. Just prior to harvesting we soaked the ground so that we could pull the plants up with the root balls still attached. After knocking off the excess dirt and loose roots, we stacked the stems in loose bundles of similar length, tied them together just above the root ball and hung the flax bundles to dry in a sunny, weather protected spot with good air circulation.
Once the flax was thoroughly dry we needed to ripple it or remove the seeds and leaves.
Rippling can be accomplished with a flax ripple, a comb like tool consisting of a row of 20-30 vertical steel pins fixed in a piece of wood and resembling a rake, by beating with a flail, or being walked on. All of these processes facilitate the removal of the seed and begin to break down the tough outer woody skin of the flax stems. True rippling is the process in which a bundle of flax straw is pulled through the ripple from the root to the stem. This process is repeated several times working from the root outward to the tip of the bundle with the bundle being turned each time to assure that all sides of the straw are exposed to the tines or teeth of the rippling tool. Seed pods fall out easily and if the rippling is done on a sheet, the seed pods can be gathered, crushed and blown to remove the hulls and the seed used for replanting.
Since we were working very small scale using available tools, for rippling we experimented with a set of Louet mini combs with two rows of teeth at 8-10/inch and a dog rake used for flicking fleece. This dog rake has a single row of teeth set at ¼” intervals. Since our flax is quite fine and only about 2 ½ feet in length, the spacing on this comb turned out to be too wide and not enough of the flax stayed in between the teeth to remove any seeds or leaves. This led us to the Louet mini combs.
The Louet mini-combs removed the majority of the seed pods along with most of the leaves and dried flowers and stems as well as beginning to pull off a bit of the outer bark. Since we had tied the flax into many small bundles of a similar length, the routine became; thwack the head of the bundle on the table to loosen everything up, make two long root to tip strokes followed by a series of 4 short strokes working down from tip to root and rotating the bundle with every stroke, and then a final thwack to remove any loose leaves, seeds or fiber.
Because of the mini combs’ efficiency at removing outer fiber and leaves, it was necessary to clean out the combs after each bundle. Using two combs in rotation helped as it allowed one to be cleaned out with a nail file while the other was being used for rippling.
The end result of the rippling was many small bundles of clean wooden stems which are ready for retting. We also managed to collect about 1 1/4 cups of clean harvested flax seed.
Botanical Notes for flax plants
Flax can be grown in any temperate climate and has a growing season of approximately 90-120 days.
It does not require a lot of ground and flax plants are generally grown close together to prevent branching and produce a single straight stem.
It requires a deep rich soil, heavy nitrogen and quickly depletes the nutrients from the land where it is grown. ( We added a heavy nitrogen fertilizer to our pots three times in the 120 day growing period.)
Weeds can cause the plant to grow sporadically and cause branching so flax must be constantly weeded in the early sprouting and growth stages. However if planted correctly, weeding is unnecessary as there is no space for unwanted plants. Apparently weeding approaches varied depending on the size of the flax field and the amount of labor available. In the early Virginia colonies, settlers were allotted two acres per family. This being considered the optimum size of flax field that one family could intensively cultivate and manage. Originally the same fields were planted repeatedly until they failed due to nitrogen depletion of the soil. Later, the principle of crop rotation began to emerge and fields were either allowed to lie fallow or were planted with alternate crops such as cow peas to re-introduce nitrogen. However flax, unlike tobacco never became the money making crop which the Virginia settlers had hoped it would be and the cultivation of flax gradually decreased until it was only grown as a side line “necessary” crop by those unable to pay for imported linen for clothing. Later, cotton proved a more reliable cash crop.
Cutting the flax plant damages the fibers and results in a loss of fiber length.
Modern flax plants are cut by machine and the linen is not as strong as that produced in earlier times.
Linen seed can be processed into linseed oil, a component of ink, lamp fuel, cattle feed, wood treatments and paint.
Other than ramie, flax has the greatest tensile strength of any natural fiber and is 20% stronger when wet.
Flax straw was often used as bedding and repels fleas and lice.
1 comment:
Thanks so much for this! Fascinating,
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