PAPER FROM NEW ZEALAND FLAX. TO THE EDITOR OF THE "OTAGO DAILY TIMES."

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXIII, Issue 3019, 30 March 1867, Page 6

PAPER FROM NEW ZEALAND FLAX. TO THE EDITOR OF THE " OTAGO DAILY TIMES."

Sir, — In y«ur issue of yesterday, I noticed a paragraph giving some information about the New Zealand flax. As you hare revived the subject, which for some time past has been either laid aside or forgotten, it may interest some of your readers if I send you » few experiences in the matter, but which, to avoid egotism, I shall detail in the third person. Several years since, a young; ma.ii, the day after his arrival in Otago, taking a remble through the Town Belt and seeing what appeared to be rmhes, without thought, when passing a bush, endeavoured to tear a piece off one of the leaves. Surprised that it resisted his utmost strength, he put his knife iv requisition, and cut the leaf through, when the strong white fibres were at once apparent. Having for a number of years been intimately connected with paper-making machinery and mills, the thought at once 8 truck him that this fibre, which evidently grew wild, aod in great profusion, was eminently adapted for the manufacture of paper. Making inquiries on his return into town, he learned that this rush was the famous New Zealand flax, or phormium tenax, which had been so often taken up as a commercial speculation, and so often thrown aside as impracticable. As no one then hinted tbat it had ever been tried for paper-making, although he afterwards found that it had been so tried, he made some experiments with the leaves, always keeping in view the mode of dealing with rags, with such success that ke considered the fibre of sufficient value to warrant a journey Home. Being in Sydney a short time after, he laid the matter before the Manager of the Australian Paper Co., who were then erecting a mill. The Manager had, however, heard ot the Sax before. He seemed to think that it might supply the place of rags, and desired that 20 tons should be sent over to him. Accordingly, upon his return to New Zealand, the young man shipped 20 tons to Sydney, where it duly arrived j but as it was tent off, unfortunately, in a green state, owing to the inexperience of both, when worked up, it was not likely to promote a very favourable impression regarding it. About fifteen months since, circumstances favouring, he left Otago for Scotland, and, on arrival, had the flax he had taken with him conveyed at once to a paper mill, where paper is made of other substances than rags, and of equal colour and finish. Be had the flax pat through the same processes as were applied to the material used in the mill, which resemble flax by being enveloped in a silica. The flax was soon converted into a pulp and run upon the paper machine, but each was its impermeability that at one part it actually stopped the machine ; part of the process had therefore to be left oat, which gave the samples a peculiar clouded appearance. Several hundredweights of the paper were made at the time, and sample forwarded to most of the leading makers. At a meeting of the paper-makers they all told him that they would purchase any quantity that could be sent, their fear being that sufficient could not be lent to meet their | demand ; their only fault was that the fibn. aas too stronag. this, upon his return to Otago, he found easily corrected, from «x«

perimenti he made. The examples of flax, in the different stages of preparation, he brought back, are more instructive as pointing out the mistakes of the trial* than their actual achievements. There are many excellent sites for mills, either for the manufacture of paper or pxdp for export, throughout the province, where flax grows in abundance, and which the projected railways will, when made, render of easy access. Many people seem to have the idea thatthe capital required for the construction of a paper mill is something enormous, which, however, is not much to be wondered at, as p«per-»akewiaiethe wealthiest class of manufacturers in Britain, j but perhaps 1 may disabuse them of that notion, when I state that paper mills may be furnished with all machinery from £1,500 and upwards. So it is not to be wondered at that companies will spend thousands of pounds on quartz reefs, very lotteries at the best, and neglect what will give a sore dividend, and benefit not only themselves but the whole colony; but this subject is not nearly exhausted. I fear I Lave already trespassed too far upon your space. — I am, &c., r R. W. S. Gwsvjb. Dunedin, March 10, 1867.

The following is the paragraph referred to :— " A most interesting series of examples ol Hew Zealand flax, showing the fibre in different states of preparation for paper-making, and also samples of paper made from the fibre, have been received by Mr. E. McGl*eh»n, \rho, about a year ago, sent to Britain a parcel of flax as cut. The flax paper, while rather highly coloured, his a singularity of texture and a strength which suggest that or flax there* might be made very excellent paper for bank-notea and other special purposes, while the paper as sent from Britain would assuredly become an article of commerce, supposing that the cost of production is not excessive. Mr. McGlashan has himself dealt with a slab of compressed pulp, as received from the p»per-maker, and has shown that the colouring matte* can be got rid of, the pulp being left as white as that of ordinary cotton lags. Mr. McGtfa«W'« samples include some fibre bleached but not subjected. to the action of the breaker ; and this is estimated by a Dundee manufacturer as being worth £50 a ton 'for some descriptions of matting.' Taken »s a whole, there have not been seen any samples of prepared New Zealand flax mote suggestive of the possibility of establishing an important 'native industry. ' Some paper-makers at Home, it ftpP 6 *™' have been previously instigated by Mr. K. W. S. Grieve to make experiments in the same direction, and their fear was that the fibre was 'too strong' for paper-making, but since Mr. Grieves return to the province he hno found that this may be easily corrected." __« — .