CULTIVATION OF NATIVE FLAX.

Press, Volume XLVI, Issue 7384, 9 August 1889, Page 2

CULTIVATION OF NATIVE FLAX.

As a good deal of discussion is going on amongst those interested in the flax industry, as to the future supply of the raw materal and as to the time that must elapse before a second cutting can be got> or aa to the possibility of growing the plants like other farm crops, a reporter of the Southland News collected the following information from Mr T. Waugh, Corporation gardener: — Mr Waugh says there are some phormium plants growing iv the Corporation Nursery which were raised from seed and are now eight or nine years old. They might have been cut two years ago, which would make the time from the seed sowing to the cutting at least six years. The seed Would have to be sown in nursery rows, in the same way as tree seeds, July or August) being the time. Light soil is beet for it, as for other seeds, and rows are better than beds, because they can be more easily weeded. The young plants would stand two years in the seed rows, and the quantity required to plant an acre would, for these two a very small piece of ground. When taken up they would be too email to plant out permanent]?, but should be transplanted into other nursery rows, and a few inches between each plant allowed. The plants would occupy these rows duriuc the third and forth seasons, and would then be ready to plant out in their permanent stations. Allowing other two years for the plants to reach maturity would make them six years old, as before stated, at j the tirst cutting. Sowing phormium where it was intended togrow permanently would never »o at all, the expense of keeping the ground clean would be so great, and if the weeds were not kept down they would choke the plants. TJuring the time the young plants were in the nursery rows, the land ultimately to be occupied by them could be cropped and thus made fit to receive the plants, and if the permanent) rows were made five or six feet apart, soma kind of root crop could be grown between them, so as to pay for keeping the land tilled and free from weeds. Even at the end of six years the crop would not be a large one —certainly nottwo tons of dressed tlax to the acre, as some people say they get; but even one ton at present prices makes it worth considering whether phormium could not be grown aa a farm crop. £30 per acre would pay a good many years' rent, and during the first four years the plants, as shown above, would not occupy much ground. Of course the second cutting would be greater, the plants by that time having stooled out and taken up the whole of the ground, and completely suppressed the weeds. The second cutting would be got in two. three, or four years, according to circumstances, but very little is known how the plants would act in a cultivated state. One cannot judge by phormium growing in a wild state. Some old established plants growing by the side of a creek might produce a second crop within two years, but It is not likely that a whole paddock would, unless it was manured or irrigated. Old flax roots could be chopped up like rhubarb, and planted to form a new plantation, bub that system of planting would be very uncertain, a great many of the pieces would not grow and the expense of planting and replanting would be far greater than by plants raising from seed. There is no difficulty about sowing the seedanyone could do it, and the expense of looking after the young plants for four years would be very little for the quantity required for an acre, if a clean piece of ground is chosen for the nursery rows. Seed could easily be erot—everyone knows what it Is like, and when it is ripe—that is, just when the pods are beginning to open. The land devoted to phormium would have to be well fenced, for the plants will not stand the treading of cattle, and that is the very reason that much of the flax growing in a wild state will never yield a secdfad crop. The coat of the planting of an acre is not very easily estimated. The ground would, of course, have to be well ploughed and harrowed to begin with, but the intermediate root crop ought to nearly pay for that. Then the furrows in which to pat the plants would be made with the' single furrow plough and a marker. Two boys would then put in the plants, one laying them down and the other covering them with a spade or hoe. The number jof plants per acre at rows 6ft. apart end plants 2ft. apart in the rows would be §630, and two boys would put in that num* ber in less than two days. The cost of the four-years-old once transplanted plants would be considerably under a £1 a thousand. It altogether depends on the quantifev grown and the sort of ground chosen for the nursery rows. If dressed flax should be £30 per ton in sbc years time after this, there is no doubt it would pay to raise it from the seed. If the industry has to be kept going, something mtfst be done, for the while, flax which Iβ accessible will soon get cut, and much ot it will never produce a second crop, or v 1C does, too many years will elapse between the first and second cutting to make 1C worth while to protect the pknts. Much of the land on our river flats which is subject to occasional flooding would be suitable for flax growing.