LINEN FLAX

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 263, 27 January 1941, Page 5

LINEN FLAX

DOMINION EFFORT

EXCELLENT RESULTS

I Complete co-operation on the part of several Government Departments and scores of farmers in the South Island has produced excellent • results in the growing of the Dominion's lirst linen flax crop, so that valuable fibre may be made availrable to Britain to replace the European supplies now cut off. Last winter farmers in Marlborough, Canterbury,. Otago and Southland were asked to prepare ground for a most ambitious undertaking—the growing of 14,000 acres of linen flax, a crop that was not known to the majority of the farmers. A guarantee to cover working costs w r as giSren by the Government, and the,farmers responded so well that over 13,000 acres were sown and the crop is now being harvested.

The production of over 13,000 acres of linen Jlax from a standing start is probably the greatest agricultural effort ever undertaken in New' Zealand* and it has been paralleled by an industrial effort of similar magnitude. Machines for pulling, de-seeding and scutching, and factories for the most up-to-date retting of the crop have been produced by Dominion manufacturerswhile the crop lias been growing.

Before the outbreak of war Britain used 60,000 tons of linen flax fibre, 54,000 tons being imported, the bulk of it from Baltic countries and Belgium. Consequently the bulk of Britain's requirements was cut off early in the war. A plan was developed for growing llax in Britain and the Dominions, New Zealand's share being put at 3000 tons of fibre, requiring 14,000 acres. The Empire plan anticipated the production of about 22„000 tons in the first year. Obviously this will have to be increased as wartime requirements are very great.