GUM OF THE NEW ZEALAND FLAX.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 528, 26 February 1876, Page 3

GUM OF THE NEW ZEALAND FLAX.

A correspondent of the Guardian writes:— ' The Phormium tenax.or New Zealand flax,is one of the most useful and most valuable of plants grown in the Southern Hemisphere. Throughout the colony nature has spread it with unlavished hands in almost every spare nook, where it springs spontaneously and thrives luxuriantly in almost any situation, furnishing from its long green leaves an inexhaustible store of tying material. In a manufactured state, its strength exceeds hemp and European flax. Through use and exposure to frequent wettings and dryings, it soon becomes useless unless saturated with tar, which renders it one of the best cords for bracing purposes in merchant ships and seafaring vessels. In another point, of view the Phormium tenax produces gum superior in strength to that obtained from the Arabian gum wattle (Acacia Arabica), so much in use on paper, particularly in the letter line. Having experimented with the two gums, the results are as follows :—Eight drachms of the raw material of each were dissolved separately in the same quantity of warm water. Six pieces of paper from the same sheet—the same size and weight—were gummed, three with flax gum, and three with gum arabic. The papers were folded and fastened, as one would do with an envelope, carefully labelling each, and laying them aside for a few days to dry. On the fourth day the papers were suspended over a boiling copper. At two minutes forty seconds two of the gum arabic pieces opened, and the third at three minutes. Five minutes elapsed with no Bign of the flax gum yielding : at six minutes four seconds two pieces partly opened, being completely saturated with the condensed steam. At seven minutes the third yielded, and about nine seconds afterwards the tenacious qualities had disappeared, thus proving that flax gum is considerably over twice the strength of the modern poßtage fastener."