LOCAL INDUSTRIES.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 2124, 16 May 1922, Page 4

LOCAL INDUSTRIES.

A gentleman, skilled in the great British industry of growing and manufacturing the osier willow, tells the Editor of this paper that New Zealand is blind to Us possibilities In such a soil and climate. He Instances a single importer of willow wands in Wellington alone, who sends abroad for on* hundred tons each year. For river protection, the osier• is unequalled, and is strengthened by being polled or cut annually for manufacturing purposes. Its utility for protective work may be seen in many miles of successful use along the banks of the Manawatu and Rangitikei rivers, although in those cases the less effective and otherwise useless variety of willows is unfortunately used. He looked at the Fitzroy bend, where this city is threatened by every flood, and expresses the opinion that the osier should there be made to do all that is needed in the way of protection, and in a couple of years to pay the administrative costs of the River Board, besides helping to build up a great local industry peculiarly suitable for the employment of partly-disabled men. Bamboo grasilis is also good for protection, and suitable for cane furniture; but the kind of willow now so extensively obstructing our drains and smaller water courses is used only for making a few hundred cricket bats. Even the larger bamboo would be preferable to the green willow, either as a protection oi' for its long, straight, tough and light stems. The osier may yet have a more potent influence upon the vexed questions of protection and industries, than the Customs tariff now possesses. An interesting phase of this question has been jealously guarded as a valuable trade secret until this moment, and the reason is clear when we disclose the fact that about £4O per ton is paid for our native kareao, or supplejack, for the making of the very best-coal baskets used at the ship's side. The bush from Waekanae to Otaki has been profitably denuded of this tough and plentiful climber.