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 When the world got acquainted with synthetic fabrics, many began to think that old natural ones would leave the stage. They will not stand up to competition with new ones. New fabrics are more durable. Do not crumple. Does not deteriorate so much from washing.
But then the first enthusiasm subsided. It turned out that ancient fibers - linen, cotton, silk - have such advantages that synthetics lack. They are more hygienic, a person in them sweats less, does not get so tired, feels better. Finally, their production results in less environmental pollution.
Which is better? Both are good. They now complement each other. Synthetics are added to enhance the strength, elegance and beauty of natural fabrics.
The oldest fiber is linseed. Both silk and cotton have a solid history. And yet there is still much that is not clear in every fibrous plant. Take our best yarn - linen. I had a dream to make it perennial. There are even types of perennial flax. But flax has to be pulled by the roots when it ripens. How then to be with perenniality? Hemp, in addition to fiber, also brings benefits - it repels pests from the field. However, which and how, we do not always know. On one field this scarecrow works, on the other it does not.
The world is not rich in fibrous plants. We use only three for clothes: flax, cotton and hemp. In some places they dress with different fibers. Jute, heneken, textile banana are used. But all these are southerners, and their fiber is rough. It is more suitable for sacks, ropes or ropes.
Or maybe it is worth looking in our northern places? Maybe there is a good fibrous plant there?
When tombs with mummies were discovered in Egypt, scientists were interested not so much in the bodies of the dead themselves as in the linen ribbons with which the dead were wrapped. Woven from linen yarn. Thin as tissue paper. Compared to them, the best Belgian cambric, almost weightless and imperceptible, seemed like a rough burlap. The fineness of Egyptian threads bordered on cobwebs. If cambric was ranked 20th, then flax from the tombs - 200th! Compare with regular threads (the higher the number, the thinner). The difference is enormous. No one in the world in our technical age can weave such an airy fabric. The mystery of Egyptian flax is lost. The secret was forgotten. And maybe forever.
Meanwhile, the flax was sold all over the world. I ended up in Europe. In particular, it took root in the non-black earth zone. Its wild relative, flax laxative, also lives here. We noticed that long-fibred flax grows on the most useless soil, "where the grass does not grow." It can give decent yields in such damp lowlands where oats will not be born. Hence the belief arose that flax is a simple culture and there is nothing easier than growing a fiber. In fact, this is not at all the case.
However, first imagine the weed itself. The songwriters dubbed it briefly: "blue flax". A blue flower sits at the top of a thin straw, seated with the same threadlike leaves. The straws stand in a close crowd, almost nestling against each other. In such cramped conditions good fiber grows.
 Although flax grows on useless soil, it is also useless on it. Short. The yarn from this flax is bad. To grow long straw, you need to fertilize. Why did the ancient Egyptians get good fiber? Because they grew a fiber in the Nile Valley. Fertilizer was free there. Even the proverb was: "The fertility of the Nile is in the fertility of silt!" However, the more fertile the soil, the more dangerous it is that the fiber will fall.
I do not know how the Egyptians got out of the situation. How did they solve this archetypical problem? With rice, with wheat, you shorten the straw there, and the crop stops lodging. You can't do that with flax. The goal here is just the opposite - to make the straw longer. Willy-nilly, we have to look for another solution.
They searched and noticed: not all flax lays down. But only the one whose stems are bent at the top or bottom. A heavy seed box pulls the bent stem towards the ground. Raindrops add extra weight. There are varieties with perfectly straight stems. In the world collection of flax there are more lodging varieties than resistant flax! It is gratifying, however, that the percentage of non-attendants is higher in our country. But it is also small - only 39 percent. Why not a hundred? Why can't all varieties be made non-leaking? Apparently, the lodgers have other valuable signs that cannot be waived?
And then one funny trick comes to mind, which in the old days was used by Pskov flax growers. Clearing the fields of weeds, they spared one weed plant - the rape. She, a bitch, seemed to not bother the Pskovites. They even created the most favored nation treatment for the rape. Because they hoped for her support. In the truest sense of the word. Sometimes bad weather would rise and flax would fall. It will tumble everywhere, except for those fields where the rape has not been weeded. This ubiquitous herb with yellow crosses of flowers for flax turned out to be about the same as stamens for peas or tomatoes. The strong stems of the rape can withstand any wind pressure. Tiny flax stalks are under their protection and do not think to lie down. Of course, this is a thing of the past, but it doesn't hurt to think about this example.
However, lodging is not all. The flax removed in time still needs to be processed. But as? Russian peasants from ancient times were divided into two camps. Some stems wet. In the river or in holes. Others spread in the meadows and leave there until the warm August dew is processed. They even came up with a special word - "growing".
The peasants of Tver, the neighbors of the Pskovs, are wetting, the Mogilev people are feeding, the Vitebsk peasants are wetting. And of course, everyone praises their way. The Pskovs, for example, assured that in the pits where the sheaves get wet, the water becomes tasty, sweet and healthy for livestock. And then, when it starts to rot, then it is no longer suitable for drinking, but it gives excellent silt - fertilizer is no worse than in the Nile Valley. From the spread, according to their concepts, one harm. Fiber is laid in the meadows in autumn. Cattle at this time, and so the grass is not enough. And here the last sites are occupied.
- There is a direct benefit from the spread, - objected Tver. - We stele on the mown meadow. The cattle on it still have nothing to feed on. But under the linen roof, the ground keeps warm and aftermath, fresh grass grows faster. Let's remove the flax, and under it the resurrected meadow! Where it was not spread, at this time all the grass will dry out, wither from the cold. From urinating is one harm. Wastewater poisons rivers. The fish is dying. No wonder the law was introduced so as not to wet where people drink water ...
There is no consensus abroad either. Wet or lay? Who wet, who lay. However, you can wet it in different ways. For many years, the best fiber was obtained by bastards from the Belgian river Lys. Valenciennes lace was woven from it. The ones that are known to every fashionista. For this, the Fox was nicknamed the "golden river" of Europe.
At first, they thought that the water in Lisa was special. We made an analysis - water is like water. True, it is soft, but it happens in other rivers as well. Then they drew attention to the fact that the Lys River does not entirely belong to Belgium. Part of it is French. Just in the place where the flax is wetted. Factory towns are scattered on the French coast. The impurities from them are dumped into the river. Therefore, there is more organic matter in the water than usual. The fox flows slowly, the sewage does not have time to swim away quickly, and there are more bacteria in the water that are necessary for flax lobe.
In the early days of urinating, laws were passed against wetting sheaves and contaminating foxes. Then, when flax began to make a profit, not only was it allowed to wet it, but even ... the movement of steamers was banned for the whole summer, from April to October. In order not to interfere with urination.
Not all experts adhere to the version with impurities. According to other sources, the quality of the fiber depends more on the qualifications of the workers who have studied the secrets of the flax plant to the subtlety.After all, each of them per day passes twenty boxes with sheaves of fiber through their hands.
Flax keeps so many mysteries that sometimes experienced people get into trouble, who have been dealing with him all their lives. For example, what happened once in the Oryol province. Two peasants sowed fiber on the landlord's land. The site was empty. The landowner did not use it. But, having learned about self-sowing, he sent a punitive brigade. Flax was mowed in bloom and thrown away.
Let's reveal the evil intent of the landowner. The matter is delicate here and again concerns the life of flax, its biology. Peasants-flax growers from time immemorial know that flax is not mowed, but fiddled with, pulled by the roots.
And although pulling is an expensive operation, because it requires a lot of working hands, still no one dares to mow. Mown flax is a lost wealth. It will go bad on the stove. The cut end is laid out earlier, faster than the tip. The bacteria will process it faster. By this time the tops will not be ready yet.
The landowner took all this into account and was sure that he had severely punished the peasants and that now their labors were in vain. They grieved and left with nothing. And the flax remained lying homeless and useless. Two days later, those peasants got into conversation with the agronomist V. Bogatyrev. They talked about their grief. The agronomist thought and said: "Bring that thrown flax to me, it will still come in handy." They brought it. Tied up in sheaves. "And now we will soak in the Belgian way." That means - in lattice boxes.
The peasants recalled: nothing will come of it. The straws have been cut off. They will get wet faster than the tops. Belgians wet uncut flax. Unmown. "And we will tie the butts with twine," says the agronomist, "so that too much water does not pass to them." Bandaged. The agronomist felt: “This is also not good, too tight. Now the butt will lag behind in the lobe. Knit so that not tight, but not loose. Average. "
In general, that flax was soaked to glory, and the peasant work was not in vain. Now, of course, science has gone far ahead and combines are engaged in harvesting flax, but it does not interfere with recalling a case from peasant practice even now.
Of course, speaking of the fiber, one cannot remain silent about the companion herbs that have adapted to flax and follow it, despite all the tricks of the agronomists. The famous Russian botanist N. Zinger tried for many years to find out how they succeed. Finally, in 1906, he got his way. I even wrote a dissertation on this topic. Here is what the candidate's brother, no less famous physicist A. Tsinger, author of Entertaining Botany, told about this.
Why was N. Zinger interested in flax weeds? For the reason that they are special beings. And they bear little resemblance to other weeds. They look more like flax itself. And looks and seeds. The seeds are especially precisely adjusted. Otherwise, they would end up in the trash when winded. The main weed in flax is camelina. Its seeds in flax are larger than usual. An increase in the size of seeds should lead to a decrease in their number. After all, even Goethe warned that the body, allowing itself some excesses, must save in other things. Once the seeds of the saffron milk cap have become larger, then other dimensions of the plant change: the stalk is shortened, the number of pods ...
Having developed this theory, Zinger decided to test it in practice. He suggested that a special large-seeded form of tori weed could contaminate flax. He did not see this plant, but predicted, using his theory, its distinctive features. And then he sent out letters of request to various farms: "Send flax seeds." To the great joy of the botanist, in a sample from the Vladimir province, tori seeds were found. The plants grown from them exactly confirmed the parameters of the hypothetical plant.
The physiologist K. Timiryazev was especially happy with the appearance of a new theory. “Your brother,” he said to A. Tsinger at Moscow State University, during a break between lectures, “has actually shown that we can raise botany to the height of exact science.As Mendeleev predicted the existence of new chemical elements, your brother was able to predict and give a detailed description of the plant, which he was able to see with his eyes only three years later.
Let's summarize. There are many unsolved problems with flax. Maybe some of them would have decided long ago. Perhaps, it would have been possible to reveal the secret of the ancient Egyptians, if the dangerous competitor of the fiber - cotton - had not appeared on the world market in the middle of the last century. Cotton. It was easier to handle in factories. Was cheaper. And the former glory of flax faded. And the XX century, which they already wanted to call the century of flax, was renamed the century of cotton.
However, the flax fans didn't give up. They know that linen yarn cannot be replaced by any other. Linen linen relieves fatigue from a person. No other fabric has such properties. It is not for nothing that, when in Europe over the past 20 years, flax sowing has decreased by half, urgently allocated subsidies to flax growers. Flax enjoys even greater attention here. The Soviet Union is the main linen power in the world. And we even have a special scientific institute of flax in the city of Torzhok.
This is where we can finish by mentioning one more old observation that is relevant to the present day. In 1771 Academician Ivan Lepekhin traveled across the Urals. He climbed Mount Konzhakovsky Kamen and froze in amazement. An unprecedented sight opened up. Blue flowers bloomed against the backdrop of gloomy, gloomy rocks. Millions of blue stars swayed to the beat of the wind on long and thin straws. On each more or less level area there was a blue flower garden, exactly reminiscent of patchwork strips of peasant flax from Tver.
It was really flax, only wild. He resembled his cultured brother not only in appearance. When Lepekhin measured the length of the straw, it turned out that it was almost equal to home-made flax. I tried to evaluate the fiber as well. Its tenderness is the same and its thickness. The academician recalled how the Arkhangelsk Pomors live in poverty without their northern flax, what losses they incur when dressing in expensive purchased fabrics, and decided to immediately recommend the wild plant for the northerners.
Perhaps his advice would have been accepted, but the traveler forgot that wild flax is a perennial creature. The cultural one is an annual. You have to fiddle with it - pull it with roots. And what about the perennial?
A. Smirnov. Tops and roots
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