FLAX DRESSING.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5501, 15 November 1929, Page 2

FLAX DRESSING.

NEW PROCESS EVOLVED. STRIPPING NOW UNNECESSARY. Mr G. Craw, of Paeroa, manager of the Hauraki Flax Growers and Hemp Producers, Ltd., has, after a series of experiments and continued investigations with flax grown on the company’s property at Awaiti, evolved a new process for the dressing of flax. The new process, he claims, will not only cheapen the milling cost by something like one-half, but at the same time will give a better fibre. Mr Craw brought to this office yesterday a large hank of fibre measuring 4ft long, from flax the selected seed of which he planted in the company’s nursery at Awaiti only 12 months ago, thus showing that young leaves can be treated with this new process which the old machines could not possibly have stripped. Fibre produced by this new method Mr Craw claims will spin into much better cordage than hemp from the old stripping method. Mr Craw has secured patent rights for his new process. No chemicals are used in his discovery, which investigations have shown can be used on proved commercial lines. It has been proved, too, that with old leaf the fibre produced by this method is finer and of greater quantity.