Flax Shocks for Harvest

Name/Title

Flax Shocks for Harvest

Entry/Object ID

P-8

Description

The following information was provided by J.J. Inskeep 20 Mar 1958: This photograph shows shocks of flax drying in the field. Plants were machine pulled. The roots added to the total length of fibre obtained from each plant. Fiber Flax production got underway in the early 1930s. Production at first centered around the state penitentiary at Salem which maintained a retting and scutching plant and purchased flax in Marion and Clackamas Counties. A successful processing plant, retting and scutching was erected at Lone Elder 2 miles south of Canby in the mid 1930s. This was a cooperative venture under good management. In the late 1940s Willamette Valley production was rendered unprofitable by European imports. Purchasers were not interested in Oregon flax because of the limited acreage favorable to the fibre flax plant in the U.S. (the Willamette Valley). Synthetics also played a part as substitutes. The Lone Elder plant was liquidated successfully about 1950. A second plant constructed near Liberal was never successfully operated.

Made/Created

Date made

1929

Place

City

Canby

County

Clackamas

State

Oregon

Country

United States of America

Continent

North America

Notes

Medium: Photographic Paper Location of Negative: Halon