NEW ZEALAND FLAX

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 84, 8 April 1936, Page 6

NEW ZEALAND FLAX

>Sir,~—l notice a letter in a late Weekly I’m.-s where samples uf wool packs made from Ne.v Zealand flax were on exhibition in London and at a luncheon a Mr. Wigglcsworth lamented I hat inducements including a bonus had not persuaded New Zealanders to prepare hemp a,i carefully as the Maoris did by hand. The fact is that one of, perhaps the .most valuable vegetable fibres of the world, has been the most neglected insofar as its preparation is concerned. J’mhaps I should not >ty neglected as large sums have been spent in an endeavour to improve the method of stripping (dressing; the flax to obtain the if.bre. The difference in the operation ot t;h-e Natives and that ol Europeans in preparing the fibre is that the Natives partially cut the green leaf or ibe epidermus then with a knife or some other similar tool and with some pressure strip off the epidermus of t-’ie leaf, the resultant libre being not at all injured by the process. In the case of the strippers used by llUiopeaus it is a machine made like the drum of a machine used fore threshing wheat, etc. The strippers are set on a drum at an angle and when driven at great speed stripps off the spidermus and leaves the libre clean, but, in this case the stripper oars are necessarily set so close that each bains it strike* the leaf, more or less damages the fibre. This cannot be avoided, but a more important factor in the superiority of the fibre prepared by the Maoris is that they select the best varieties only and until rhe Europeans adopt the name course ‘hey will not get much forader. I would venture the opinion that at least 2") per cent, of the leaf milled is inferior in that it is weak, has no elasticity, and will stand no strain, and until such time as the Europeans adopt the practice of the Maoris of selecting only the best varieties and cultivate them, our New Zealand Hemp will not occupy its place among the world s fibres which it deserves. .Selection of bcsit varieties coupi'.d with improved methods cf dressing is lihe only solution. It has become a general'habit to speak of the various sports as varieties, there arc but two varieties, vis. Tenase and Cockianum, the sports are caused by cross fertisation. New Zealand flax is a Ji Uy (I.iiiaceal) and rarely, if ever, comes true to the parent plant if grown from seed for that reason it is necessary to propagate from fans, that is, roots with the bulbs of leaves attached. In suitable soil by planting in this manner the leaf can be milled in three rears. In 190-1 a number of varieties were collected by an officer of the Agricultural Department and varieties used* by the Natives and planted at the Weraroa Experimental Farm, and in 1908 the leaf from these plants was milled and complete records kept. Such ?’s the weight of leaf of each variety,

the weight of clean fibre and t’ht scutchings and the quality of fibre t f the ton of green leaf, etc. The differences in the yield of 11 bn to the ton ol’ leaf was in sonic instance: remarkable so also was the greal variation in quality. The differences were such that it wa: expected that millers and others wouk take advantage of the experiment an< plant largely roots of the best varie ties. It is only by Uhig means that ihi valuable fibre plant will take its placi among the fibre plants of the world.— I am vours, etc., G. McGREGOR. Kau.’ina, April Z } 1936.