Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 96, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 March 1919 — FLAX DISTRICT IS RUINED [ARTICLE]

FLAX DISTRICT IS RUINED

Belgian City Taken by Germans Shorn of Barges and Precious Machinery. Washington.—Before the war Courtral was a center for the production of flax of European importance, and the city harbored for this purpose a large English and Irish colony. Now the whole flax district is ruined. The large barges in which the flax was put to rot in the Lys were sold by the Germans as firewood much below their value. * The copper from the flax mills and the other preclons machines were requisitioned. The soldiers were quartered In the factories and the celebrated “Lelcweerschen,” the plains on which the flax was bleached, were plowed and planted with tobacco and potatoes. Many, Indeed, of the fertile flax fields were turned over several times and many served as battlefields. It will 6e years before the fields bear flax again.