Just the flax, Ma'am - Glimpses of the Past with Karen Webster
What is a slender, frail-looking plant with beautiful blue flowers that produces fibres strong enough to be used as a covering on fighter aircraft and seeds that are used for feed for livestock? If you guessed flax, you would be correct.
This plant, which has its origins 30,000 years ago in the Middle East, has two main varieties. There is one with long straw, used for linen, and fewer seeds that produce inferior oils. The other commercial type has a shorter straw and abundant seeds suitable for making oil and oilcake meal used for livestock feed. A third, less common, market for flax is for seed stock, as some of the linen-producing areas are unsuitable for flax cultivation.
The process to create linen cloth from the flax plant is quite fascinating. Mechanization was not available until the mid-20th century so, before that time, the process to create linen cloth from flax was quite labour-intensive. When the plants were ready for harvest, they were hand-pulled to maximize the length of straw available and because linen fibre is also in the root of the plants.
Once the stalks were pulled, they were left in the field to both dry and be exposed to rain in order to break down the outer covering of the fibres inside. This process is called retting, or rotting.
To process the flax, next the seed heads were combed out and the tough outer stalk was broken down using processes called scutching and hackling, removing the chaff. Following this, the fibres could be separated from the fragments of their sheath. The strands of fibre then had to be carded to align the fibres then spun into thread that could then be woven on a loom.
Before mechanization was used in the process, flax production in our area was labour-intensive. In August, school children could earn extra cash by pulling flax. In addition, migrant workers from Indigenous tribes would come to the area to set up their tepees in flax fields and take part in the harvest.
On a personal note, on my wall is a sampler crafted by an eight-year-old girl in 1842 in Scotland, made from linen woven on the family plot. I have always treasured it for its beauty and familial history, but now do even more so knowing just how much effort went into making the linen for the sampler.
For clothing choices, early settlers of this area were dependent on wool, mainly from sheep, and linen that they could grow from flax in their own fields. As a result, many settlements had their own flax mills, including Atwood and Brussels, to name a few. In Lucknow, the Anderson family name was synonymous with flax for many years.
Blyth had several flax mills: one was serviced by J. and J. Livingstone Co. until 1897 as were Seaforth, Listowel and Palmerston. The Blyth mill was located along the south bank of Blyth Creek, east of Queen Street, where Howson and Howson is located in 2025. Later on, James McMurchie set up on the former salt works on Dinsley Street where Hubbard’s Rutabaga factory is now located. The enterprising T. A. Gordon of Seaforth resurrected the flax industry in Blyth in 1940 by building on the property on Queen Street South, where the Huron Housing apartments now stand.
The rise and fall of flax production in the area has several factors to consider. The original flax mills in the area faltered because cotton became more readily available and more economical. The Great War of 1914-1918 caused renewed justification for growing and processing flax in the area. At that time, Belfast, Ireland was one of the major linen-producing centres. Because the climate there is not very conducive for the cultivation of flax, it was imported from Russia and the Baltic States, sources that dried up during wartime.
Military uses of linen included the manufacturing of tarpaulins, tents, parachutes, shoe thread, hatch and wagon covers, gun swabs and rope; but the most intriguing use was as a covering for fighter planes. In order to keep the aircraft as light as possible, linen was stretched over wooden frames. The linen was treated with chemicals to tighten the fibres and to make them strong. Once the war was over, the prices for flax bottomed out and many mills closed.
One person who did not follow this trend was Herbert Kirkby of Walton, who ran a small operation starting in 1933. Herbert had an unused barn and several sons to do the work of processing seeds for oil. A byproduct of his operation was the straw or tow which was sent to a brass works in Connecticut to be used as packing material.
In cyclical fashion, when World Ward II was underway, the need for domestic flax once again increased. In 1940, Huron County was producing 25 per cent (5,000 acres) of Canada’s flax crop. At that time, mechanical pullers and tractors operated by two men could harvest eight to 10 acres a day. Truckers were paid $1.25 an hour, field help $2.50 a day, and factory workers $2.50 a day. Once the war ended, history repeated as markets were lost, factories closed and many people became bankrupt in the process.
Linen still has a place in the clothing and home furnishing sectors; however its tendency to wrinkle and to be subject to shrinkage if laundered in hot water makes it less attractive to some consumers.
It is difficult to fathom now the prominence this crop once had in our area. Where once there were oceans of blue blossoms rippling in the wind, now there are only a few acres here and there. Flax has mostly been replaced by other crops that are more commercially attractive. That’s the flax and nothing but the flax.