Wheat and Flax in the Northwest

Abstract

Flax has an important place in the agricultural readjustment program of the hard spring wheat area of northern Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Montana, but flax should not be used as a substitute for wheat on a large scale. Low yields, due largely to weeds and unfavorable soil conditions resulting from continued grain production, coupled with relatively low prices over a series of years, has made a change necessary in the cropping system. The change should be, however, from wheat to inter-tilled or forage crops rather than to another small grain such as flax. There are several limiting factors that have been overlooked by some in suggesting the advisability of replacing wheat with the apparently more profitable flax crop. It is to this phase of agricultural readjustment that your attention is directed in this paper. Some flax history and a few facts relating to the production and marketing of flax will be presented as a background. Flax production was undertaken in the United States soon after the landing of the Pilgrims in Massachusetts in 1620, and it was grown until the middle of the 19th century in the eastern states, largely as a fibre crop. In 1850, Ohio and Kentucky were the heavy flaxseed producing states, and since that time the flax area has steadily moved westward through Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa. Today the heavy flaxseed producing area is centered in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Montana. These four states produce over 90 per cent of the crop in the United States. Government crop reports indicate a small seed production in Wisconsin, Nebraska, Kansas, and Wyoming. PRODUCTION AND YIELD OF FLAXSEED.-With the exception of the 1924 crop the maximum production of flax in the United States occurred in 1902, when 3,740,000 acres were reported, with a yield of 29,285,000 bushels. From 1914 to

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