Flax was one of the first European plants cultivated in America. From the earliest settlements, each ethnic group brought its own types of tools to process flax. The Germans, French, English, Swedes, Scots, all had tools in the style of their homelands. Their linen made clothing, bedding, towels, upholstery material, grain bags, wagon covers, sails and many other items. Flax grows quickly, in less than three months. It is pulled out of the ground with the roots intact to preserve the full length of the fiber. Next, the seed was removed and saved for replanting. Surplus seed was pressed for its oil, which was used in paint and was burned in lamps for light. It was also the basis for printer's ink and had medicinal uses as well. Flax was the primary crop in colonial America.
   Processing the flax straw was a laborious process. After retting, the flax was broken, scutched or scraped, then combed; each step required its own unique tool. 

Below, scutching or scraping the flax plant begins to remove the broken, crushed remnants of the stalk from the fiber. Shown is the two-edged scutching knife typical of Germany. British and Scandanavian settlers generally used a one-sided knife.

Below, combing the flax removes the last of the chaff and is the final preparation before spinning the fibers. Shown is are the four-sided, square nails typical of Germanic combs. Each nail was handforged by a blacksmith. British and Scandanavian combs used a drawn-iron technology to produce a round nail. Wooden nails were actually used in some parts of Eastern Europe such as Latvia that lacked iron deposits. Every farm had at least one flax comb but it was not uncommon to use both coarse and fine combs. The short, tangled fibers left in the combs were called the tow fibers. The tow left in the coarse combs was used for stuffing mattresses, cleaning pots and rifle muzzles and for starting fires. Tow was also made into rope (hence the term “tow path” along canals where the mules literally towed canal boats with rope made from tow.) Tow was also used as the oakum in tamping between the planks of sailing ships with pitch to help make the hulls watertight.  Tow left in the fine combs was a better grade and could be spun and woven into tow cloth, a coarser, stronger, heavier-weight fabric than regular linen. The long fibers that remained in the hand after combing was the “line fiber” which was then spun to make a line of thread that was called linen. The line fiber was typically stored in twists called “stricks,” which means rope or twist in Pennsylvania German.