Flax

Feilding Star, Volume VIII, Issue 78, 6 January 1887, Page 2

Flax

The invention of a flax-dressing machine, which is said to be far superior to any yet applied for the purpose, has directed a good deal of attention to an industry which has hitherto been one of the most disastrous ever attempted in the colony. In both islands wherever the attempt has been made, whether by private enterprise or public companies to work the phormiwn tenace, failure and loss have followed as naturally as night succeeds the day. The first difficulty — which has never been surmounted yet — has been the removal of the gum from the fibre, and the second the certainty of premises, plant, and tow being destroyed by fire. No precautions have ever succeeded in averting the latter calamity. Although continued failures have damped the ardour of those who have learned caution by bitter experience, yet we think it possible new men may be tempted to make new efforts which may be so guided and directed as to avoid those snares and pitfalls that entrapped and ruined their predecessors. The profits on flax growing, whether native or the Irish flax, are very great, and we propose in a few days to publish certain facts and figures to show that the cultivation of these may be made very remunerative for the typical small farmer or settler.