PARKS AND GARDENS

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 85, 4 January 1941, Page 13

PARKS AND GARDENS

Use For Flax Growing Hundreds of acres of Canberra parks and gardens may be taken over for war service this year.. Plane are being prepared by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research for the planting in the parks of linen flax—for which there is a heavy war-time demand, particularly from Great Britain. Experimental plots of flax have been in production for about two years under the supervision of council experts. These formed the basis for cultivating the present 21.000-acre crop. A large area of land near Parliament House is being sought for flax planting, and plans have been made for the use of fallow’ land and areas of tilled ground bordering many city avenues. Costs of maintaining the gardens will be reduced if flax is planted, and experts say that the flowering of the crop will add considerable beauty to the city. Flax is being grown in Australia nt the request of the British Government, which supplied seed sufficient to plant 13.000 acres. The British Government pays from £96 to £lBO a ton for linen fibre, according to quality, and it is prepared to take large quantities now that the former sources of supply, which were mostly in Russia, have been closed by the war.