FIBRE FROM FLAX.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 281, 28 November 1938, Page 10

FIBRE FROM FLAX.

NEW EXTRACTION PROCESS. fM PORT ANT CLAIMS MADE. (From Our Correspondent.) HASTINGS, Sunday. Tt I.q likely that revolutionary changes in methods of extracting fibre from flax will be made if proposals now afoot to establish the flaxgrowing industry in flawke's Hay on the t'oukawa Swamp are acceptable to the Government. Ah a result of a now process it is claimed that the quantity of fibre that can lie extracted from flax in IncreaHed considerably. The new procesn makes it possible to extract the shorter fibre from the flax; in other word*. It in possible to extract flic fibre from all part* of the flax leaf, a great quantity of which has in the pant, boon regarded as waste. The amount extracted will be more than doubled as a result of the utilisation of hitherto waste fibre. The extra fibre processed, it is stated, might make all the difference betwoen success and failfire from the standpoint of an economical and profit making industry. The process also makes possible the extraction of fibre from dried leaf, whereas in the past only green leaf was of any use. It is also claimed for the new process that it can be applied to produce fibre from the leaves of the ordinary cabbage tree and wild mountain flax such as is to be found growing on the pumice country between Napier and Taupo.