NEW ZEALAND FLAX.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 145755, 14 February 1917, Page 5

NEW ZEALAND FLAX.

ITS AA'ONDROUiS POSSIBILITIES. (By Charles Cristadors, in the San Diego Union.) A great howl was going up all through tho north-western wheat ■ States, and I wanted a binder twine fibre. The sissal trust was grinding the face of the wheat farmer, and at this lime, strange to say, down from the University of California, came a leaf of New Zealand liax, eight feet or more in length. I examined it carefully. It seemed to be almost pure fibre, so far as my eve could judge. The wizard (my 'neighbour, the Hon Lyman J. Gage, refers to this inventor as a composite of a modified Edison-Burbank), sent this leaf back to mo a. mass of the strongest, most lustrous and silkiest fibre. I had even seen. Apparently, hero was a fibre find, a fibre bonanza, .so to speak. Later a leaf was sent down to me, followed by ‘frenfc bundles from onr Exposition grounds from a plant two years old, loaves eight-and-a-half feet long, and weighing half a pound each. A hundred pounds of these leaves, more or less, to a mature plant! SCIENTIST BEGINS STUDY. At once, I began to read upon New Zealand flax (Phorraium Tenax). It is a perennial growth, everlasting so far as I can learn, once it takes hold, and indigenous to New Zealand, but eminently adapted to a California, environment. growing ,horo more quickly than in New Zealand, plants grown from roots maturing and yielding in our Fair Grounds in two years. In Now Zealand it grows in swampy without care or cultivation, yielding easily 10 to 15, sometimes 25 tons of leaves per acre! Much of our swamp land areas could be reclaimed by tins plant, most profitably, and yet with an “equal-to-lomon” orchard irrigation, it will grow on all but worthless soil, and mav turn our mesas into dividendpaying lands that no orange or lemon orchard or alfalfa field can equal. Irrigation, seemingly, more than soil is needed. Under cultivation and irrigation leaves might grow to a length o£ 12 to II feet. It grows from- seed, and from roots, presumably bettor from the latter. It resists everything, oven a moderate 20 degrees Fahrenheit frost. (Note, from New Zealand Agricultural Reports: One of the'easiest plants to grow. Is not in any way affected by frost, nor the most severe winds). Once planted, the growth is permanent. A single plant under proper cultivation is said to yield 50 to 100 pounds of green leaves at a. single cutting, and a yield of 50 tons per acre is reasonably to be expected. Grown in our Imperial Ahilley and Southern California generally, it no doubt would do far better than the above. It is said if properly irrigated it will grow on the poorest of soil. This New "Zealand flax is rated as to tensile strength at 100, whilst hemp is rated at but 70 (presumably the Manila or sisal fibre), and Unix (presumably the European flax) at but 50. That is where the Tenax comes-in—tough; ICO per cent, stronger than flax when woven into cloth. The wonderful India paper that for strength is , the marvel of the paper world is made from European flax, and that accounts for its unapproachable strength. And hero is Phormium Tenax double the strength. FLAX TO SUPPLANT SISAL So this was not only to prove a most suitable fibre for binder twine, supplanting sisal from Yucatan, but a. field of unlimited uses are to be opened up to it. Siaal is the ordinary raw nmterial from which most of tho binder twine is made, but at present there is an air tight trust on sisal in Yucatan from which the Internationa) Harvester Company suffers like all tho rest. It is not in tho sisal trust. Rope, cordage of all kinds, thread, nets, and fishing linos, linen, paper and many other manufactured products await an abundant and cheap supply of this fibre. Automobile tyres are to bo made of this fabric because of its toughness. Even cotton, long staple, appears rotten alongside this tensile giant. All- of these are of great importance when one can take tho leaves green or dry as leather from this plant and machine them into a mass of lustrous fibre, and the yield is 50 tons of loaves eight to twelve feet long to the .acre—longer, perhaps. A yield of fibre of 12 to 14 per cent from the green leaf.

Already Pbonuium Tenax plants are growing and thriving by the thousands in California, as ornamental growths, no one paiyng any attention to the wonderful commercial possibilities of the plant along agricultural and manufacturing lines. Hero is wha.t Mr. Morley, Superintendent of Parks for San Diego, says of this plant; “■San Diego, Cal., Nov. 21, 1916. “ Dear Mr. Cristadoro; 1 hope the following information relative to Now Zealand Flax (Pboriniiun Tenax) will be of use to you ; “It is a plant.that.has been grown in California for many years as an ornamental plant. I have grown it for twenty years. It grows well in any ordinary soil, will grow very luxuriantly in rich soil and where it can have plenty of moisture. It will stand a groat deal of drouth, but under such conditions will not produce commercially. Pliormiiim Tenax (plain and variegated) are the tallest growing varieties; in Southern California the leaves frequently grow ten feet long.

“The seedlings are two years old before they make a- good single crown, and as they grow older, produce other crowns. Propagation by division of the crowns is generally done to increase stock, and single established crowns will make a plant five dr ten crowns in three years, provided it lias good soil and is well watered. Eventually the plant will grow throe to five feet or more in .diameter with about twenty crowns to a plant, ten leaves to a crown weighing about eight ounces each “They have been found to be quite hardy In the south of England and Ireland, and consequently should stand all the frost wo have in Southern California. In fact, whore you can grow oranges, New Zealand flax will thrive. “J. G. MOBLEY," ‘ ‘Superintendent Parks. ’ ’ EXPERT APPROVES. And now comes Mr. Osborn G. Austin, expert horticnlturalist. for the Harris Seed Company, San Diego, who informes mo as follows; That he has grown New Zealand flax, Phormium Tenax, for many years; tha t to get immediate results divisions of tho root should be planted, young crowns from the parent plant. At three years of less, you should, under favourable conditions, be able to get 75 or SO leaves from eight plant, six to eight feet in

length, averaging eight ounces per leaf, j and from then on you could reap from ! five to twenty-five leaves per plant j every two months, cutting the mature loaves and lotting the others grow on It stools out ill a number of crowns from tho ground, increasing the size of the plant very rapidly. Those can he split off from tho plant and reset, A crop of 50 tons of loaves nor acre is a very conservative estimate. I know of very few plants which would respond more quickly to generous treatment and repay the grower (letter. It will thrive in almost any soil and grow in swamps where .the water is not stagnant. It needs little attention, stands both cold and heat, and will give the grower far better returns than can he hud from any plant or tree grown in Southern California. The uses of the fibre are almost beyond estimation, being the strongest of any fibre known, and opens a wide field for a score of manufacturing industries. All of this information obtained, a set of samples was prepared to await the coming of Mr. Daniels, manager of the fibre department of the International Harvester Company, manufacturing many thousands of tons of hinder twine annually. In company with Mr. Price, the local representative of the company,-Mr. Daniels called upon me in my lath-house. One by one he examined my samples, remarking that my Kentucky hemp samples were far too valuable to go into binder twine, when so finely processed should sell for GOO dollars to 800 dollars per ton, especially in these days of fibre hunger all through the East. WONDERFUL OFFER MADE. Ho finally came to a sample of tins New Zealand.flax. He knew about it, but our samples wore different. Most carefully did he test each sample, and the result is shown in the accompanying fac-sunilo letter from the Harvester Company : The romance in the case is that a captain of industry should call upon mo and tender mo an older for nearly 2,000,000 dollars worth of New Zealand flax fibre with not a single growing ton of it available in the entire/ United States, although thousands of those plants for ornamental purposes are growing in California. Yet by going to I it and planting it we can within the next two or three years plant and grow thousands upon thousands of tons of it. Piero was where the commiserated friend of our schoolboy days came in, Tantalus punished by Jupiter, for could this order lie filled at the most generous allowance for growing and process*, mg, it would make the inventor more than a. millionaire over night ; and this it but a sample order, so to speak; .only a few days’ supply out of the many many thousands of tons said To be manufactured annually Certainly, this is a business romance with a Tantalus-i hko sequelr * All that is necessary is to plant the 1 thousands of acres of rich lands in our j Southern California valleys, Imperial | valley and the San Diego county valleys 1 as instances, tyith this wonderful fibre | growth, to wait a matter of two years, | at most three, to give the plants time ! to mature, and to harvest fifty tons or more; perhaps, to the acre. *An Arabian night’s dream or a reality, which ? Time alone can tell. POSSIBILITIES UNLIMITED.

But this is only the beginning, the agricultural end of it. And when the rancher has grown bis flax and harvested it, then the score dr more of manufacturers take hold apd tire spinping and weaving of linen, variofls cloths and canvasses begin; the manufacture of rope, cordage, twines, thread, binder twine, automobile material and a score of kindred products are manufactured. The Japanese are making silk 'material from Phormium Tenax fibre, illustrative of its possibilities. '

The control of the binder twine situation would be iu American bands; and binder twine in connection with this general manufacturing proposition may be considered hut a mere speck in fibre space, despite the fact that annually Yucatan sends us about one million bales of sisal of 500 pounds each, wortii in the New York market, say _ 50,000,000 dollars. And like the ticking of a clock sisal is advancing a cent at a move. The northwestern wheat farmer knows too well all about this sisal *nd tells about an air tight trust in Yucatan beyond the reach of the Sherman law financed from this side by American bankers; and the wheat farmer wants congress to take a hand and run down these bankers. But this is not the kind of relief the wheat farmer ronllv wants.

The Lord helps those who help themselves, arid the. only way to get from under this trust is to grow our own binder twine and under control on American soil. There is no other practical way._ And once we have begun to produce New Zealand flax in appreciable quantities, say in two or three years from now, its effect upon the sisal market will be pronounced and the time will come when the New Zealand flax will have entirely supplanted the Yucatan sisal growth, so far as binder twine is concerned. California will be able to make money out of this home grown binder twine when sisal is being sold in New York at cost or even at a loss. Manila hemp will not be able to compete. The henequin or sisal green leaf yields 3 to 3J per cent, of fibre; the ma*rila but 1 to 2 per cent. Sisal yields about 1000 pounds of fibre per acre, which is on an average 250 pounds than the yield of tow-free Kentucky hemp fibre grown under average Eastern conditions, whilst the New Zealand flax, in its native land, produces fifty tons of leaves per acre and a yield of 12 to 14 per cent, of fibre, 'when properly processed. What this plant will produce under the forcing sun of Southern California per acre, no one knows. One experienced grower estimates 100 tons, but ho is an enthusiast and yet he claims he is right and says time will prove him se. The suggestion is made that because of the immense growth of this flax it be spaced 8 by 6 feet. This would permit of cotton, Kentucky hemp or other crops being cultivated during the maturing of this growth, to be finally discarded when tbo cutting -of the flax begins, - Once this growth is l well grounded in California nothing can prevail against it, even Yucatan foreign cheap labour. BANNER CROP, MAYBE.

All this cannot be done in a clay. But we have tho laud and tho sunshine, unlimited irrigation water and a plant growth that requires no care other than plenty of moisture ; in fact, less care than the Yucatan heuecuin, and is afraid of no enemy, even frost, if the New Zealand Agricultural. Reports ring true. No matter how many acres the rancher may plant and no matter how many tons he may harvest to the acre, he never can catch up to tho demand. It always will exceed the supply. The more the uses for this fibre develop the more will new ones arise.

The export field may prove unlimited. One single concern uses 100,000 tons, more or less, of fibre annually. If New Zealand flax wore used, this would

mean tho crop off of only a: few thousand acres of land, and that, too, is hut a speck, so to speak, in our agricultural space in California when we consider the 152,000 square miles within the state and 640 acres to a square mile!

There is no reason why tho monetary returns from the growing and manufacturing of this flax should not compare favourably with or perhaps exceed any other industrial enterprise in the state. The banner crop of California in time. Surely no crop, aero for acre, oranges or anything else, can be made to show the profit that can be derived from the growing of this flax. There-is no reason why the Imperial valley and Southern* California generally should not be able to set aside enough of her broad and producing valleys and mesas to give this growth a good momentum. Acre for acre, value and production, alfalfa and cotton and Kentucky hemp avo'dwarfed by this flax. No more irrigation is demanded than for lemons. 1 can only point the way. It is all up to tho' enterprising ranchers of California and in fact of the great Southwest with its fertile plains and irrigation dams. It would seem ns if the United States department of in its seed distribution efforts, might import from New Zealand and Australia at the cost of digging the roots or crowns, phis the freight, a few hundred tons of bulbs or roots and seed (it is of the lily family and it is said exposing the roots to the weather does not harm them) and distribute these throughout tho great Southwest. It would be building better than it knew by giving an impetus to this growth. And so the fertile and irrigation dams are awaiting this flax and without question the incomparable growth is to enrich the ranchers who have* the enterprise and foresight to pldnt it. New Zealand flax, Phormium Tenax.