CORRESPONDENCE.

Wanganui Chronicle, Issue 19962, 16 December 1913, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

FLAX AND ITS ENEMIES,

(To tho Editor.)

Sir, —After upwards of fifty years' ex- ' perien.ee in sheep-farming in tho Dominion on various runs, all more or less ■ covered with flax, I have no hesitation in saying that of all native plants in the ooen country flax has the greatest vitality, and yet it is dying out! Until llax-milling had been established three lor four years no method of destroying j flax had been discovered, except by cutI ting up the plant ■with a spade below j the level of tho ground. For twenty ! years, first for others and later for myself, I burned out swamps and rough | country •, but tho result was always the j same —burning repeatedly dwarfed or killed fern, manuka, toitoi, etc., but flax was always improved by burning as ! long as there was any considerable rubbish amongst it to clear out. The effect of firing such country is to increase the stock carrying of the land immediately, by opening up spaces for grazing not get-at-able before; nsd all burned swamps, if dry enough, afford sheep good grazing, of what they are ve-ry fondI—various1 —various kinds of partially burned herbage. And within a week or two after the fire, according to the season, the burnt coarse rank grass in and around the swamps, before rejected by btock, after burning sends up tender shoots of which sheep are very fond. Flax is attacked by several enemies besides the flax-miller. I have noticed small slugs, caterpillars and grasshoppers on the blades of flax; but whether ail are responsible^for tho serious damage to it 1 am not in a position to say. The pests have vastly increased of late, and threaten, with the assistance of the flax-miiler, to virtually exterminate flax in tlie Dominion. The pest s riddle the blades of flax with holes and cut notches out of the edges of the leaves, the damages extending in some cases from the point of the blade (which becomes frizzled and yellow) for more than two feet downwards; in such case it is absolutely worthless for milling and the plant languishes and no longer sends up fresh shoots. Flax less seriously affected is milled, provided the peste leave sufficient length of blade free from holes and notches. So far as I know, the only means of reducing this pest is to run a lire through the flax swamps, eoqti after all flax worth taking is "cut out." The burning will almost exterminate the pests, and the stricken bushes will again grow healthy blades and -will be in every respect as good and sound as the rest of the flax on the burned area, ian<l all will be ri.pe for cutting within three years. Other causes of the deterioation. of flax are cutting too often and too- low (the first is the miller's fault, the second the cutter's; who cut as low, as possible to secure weight, by which they are paid). Cutting too i re- ! qnently gradually dwarfs the'plant" and { it languishes, and: becomes useless for milling purposes. Cutting too low af- I fects the plant in the same manner. Under certain conditions, cutting too low will kill tho flax outright, bulbs nnd roots, as will be shown by the following case, which happened some years ago before flax was as wall understood as at present: I granted a flax-cutting license over my stock run, without restriction as to months for; cutting. There was a block of about fifteen acres of flax growing on a flat adjoining- a stream, all strong and healthy and of about fours years' growth. . This was cut about mid-winter^ and only moderately low; but four o,r five very severe frosts soon followed. About a week or ten. days later, I hiad occasion to ride by the lo^acre block of flax blubs, and to my astonishment I found they were all quite black from the frost —every plant killed, as it afterwards turned out! I have never witnessed any flax fit for milling or' capable of becoming such, permanently damaged by fire—only dwarfed flax languishing from bad treatment or being deprived of sufficient moisture through draining, are r.o affected, and liable to be destroyed by fire, in the following manner: A swamp i 3 drained or partially so, and in time on its margins some of the flax bushes will languish and be dying. The reason is that the wet peat on whicli,they flourished has become as dry as tinder and in some cases as hard us a brick. If fire gets into this dry conglomeration under the dying flax, the plant is finished, and ito blackened 'bulbs with the butt ends of its blades remain in evidence on tne ground for years. Millable flax cannot be biirned in r.ueh a manner, because by the time the peat under the flax got dry enough to.iurn, the plant would be half dead and no longer millable! Tho spreading of flax by seed on flax countiy cut over is abolished, far the flax is cut before the seed is ripe and the two years' growth rarely bears any. Even Wfore flax-miUiiig was started 25 years r.go, the sight of a new seedling plantwas very rare, for unless the seed falls on favourable soil and in a position where- light, if not 6'in. can reach it, it will not germinate. Anyone well acquainted of old with tho strips of coast country, averaging about four miles in width and extending from Manawatu to Paekakariki, a distance of about forty miles, will admit that it was nearly, if not half, covered with flax, not one-quarter of which now remains; and there is every prospect of it being entirely destroyed in 'a few years, except perhaps some bushes retained in gardens and -pleasure grounds in the district. What with slugs, caterpillars, grasshopp:vs and flax-millers, flax bids fair to become rare m th© Dominion; and putting a tax on owners' flax was surely bad policy, for it induced some owners who had little flax, to- cut it out mid have done -with it, and others who hiad began cultivating flax to abandon it in disgust. No action is taken to discover a. remedy against the pests infecting the flax and destroying its blades— owners of flax land continue to allow the flax-millers to cut the flax too often — and flax-millers continue to pay their cutters by the weight of flax cut, which results in a pretty good slice of tho bulb of the plant being left on each blade! And so the work of destruction proceeds anace. —I am, etc., "A. J. H."