text:  The _object_ of the suggestion is laudable but the _end_ I fear unattainable; for if good _seed_ is raised to make good oil-cake or compounds with oil the _flax_ will be coarse and flax of inferior quality will never pay so well as corn: and it should never be lost sight of in considering this question that to raise flax must bring it into competition with white crops and not green crops because to raise it as a green crop would be to deteriorate its quality by bringing it into immediate contact with manure; and on the other hand if it is raised without manure as a fallow-crop it must deteriorate the soil materially--no species of crop being _more_ scourging to the soil than flax not even a crop of turnip-seed