PHORMIUM TENAX

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2420, 22 April 1922, Page 4

PHORMIUM TENAX

A NATIVE WEALTH PRODUCER, THE STORY OF A GREAT INDUSTRY. (By Alfred Seifert, in the Manawatu Times.) (Concluded from Thursday’s issue.) Theflax is taken from the yard as it is. required for stripping. It is put through the machines at an average twenty-five cwt. per hour. The fibre as it comes out from under the stripper is placed over an endless moving chain by an automatic washing machine, and in going through this washing machine is thoroughly cleaned. After coming out the chain places the fibre on a shuttle, where a man stands and puts the fibre into suitable sized hanks, and then plaits the hanks over draining poles. The fibre remains about twenty hours on the draining poles, and is then carted to the bleaching fields, where it is spread out to bleach. When the fibre is bleached and dry' enough, it is then hanked and tied in bundles ready for scutching, or stored until it; is convenient to scutch. Until a year or two ago, the next process,-scutching, was all carried out by hand, but lately several mills have'installed automatic scutchers to do the work. If the fibre is scutched by hand, it is put through a slot., and is held while being scutched between a drum of about six feet diameter, with six beaters revolving at about two hundred revolutions a minute, arid a concave. The beaters in this, drum travel within about an inch and a-half of the concave. The automatic machine scutches by applying the same principle, Only instead of men holding the fibre, the fibre is held by a grip, after being thrown over an endless moving chain, which carries one end of the fibre into the scutcher. After this end is scutched it is drawn out, the grip is changed by an ingenious arrangement, and the other end enters to be scutched. The shifting of the grip is necessary in order to scutch the middle of the hank of fibre. The fibre after-being scutched is put into hanks weighing about- five pounds, and baled up into packs which weigh about four cwt. The fibre is now ready for cordage manufacture. Going through all the processes mentioned; here takes about, three weeks in fairly good weather. In had weather it may take six weeks. The' best market for our hemp is in England, America and Australia. I believe a lot of hemp sent to England eventually found its way to the Continent. FLAX AREAS. In the Dominion I estimate that there are about GO,OOO acres ot*fiax land. I have arrived at this estimate by taking the amount of fibre exported a normal period from the Dominion, and from my knowledge of the flax industry. FLAX CROP. The flax industry cannot progress unless there is an abundant supply of raw material for the mills. The present position of'the flax .areas is enough to cause alarm. I feel that if improved methods. of growing flax are not adopted, and if more enterprise is not shown, this important industry will decline until it will be rated of no importance in this country. This is a state that should be avoided at all hazards. Our market is assured as long as we continue to supply those who have been using our fibre with a reasonable quality of hemp. Improvements are beirfg made from time to time which enable us to put our fibre on y the market in.a more attractive form.

For many yearsjpast millers have had' a price for nemp that would have paid well for growing flax, better, in fact, than dairying or any other method of farming. If the industry has been übl6 to do this for some years past, surely it will continue to do so in the future. Cultivation as applied'to other crops is practically unknown in the flax industry. The areas being.-worked at, ’present Jijjw been )•?*..i, ':„k\/y.iiri', or h.v draining s extent suitable for drix. file iast big area hrotigi,.. .a /by this method was a part : ;he Ivfakentn Swamp. A company 15)02 bought about 12,300 acres, j eing the balance, of the fwiitnn owned by the Manawatn Railway Cry., |,td. The land wn= entirely tinimproveil except for two drains. At .lie time of purchase I believe it was valued for tnxnii m purposes at 5.3 p i acre. Immediately the company .'or possession of the land drainage work was put in hand, and the Tokomaru stream was opened out to give •in outlet to the drains. Main outjlet drains were also made, then other drains-cut into them until the whole nrqp liad drains constructed through it about 20\chains apart. Later the drains were put closer, till at present- they arc about 10 chains apart. This is found to- he a suitable distance in -the swamp. Shortly after the drains.were first made they had to he reconstructed because the land sank and closed them up.y In many-cases reconstruction coslmore than the original work. Most of the drains have now been re-made three or four times.

Taking the stagnant water off by drainage caused the flax to grow. Before this was done short flax was growing - all through the swamp. After the land was drained, scrub, toi-toi and other plants grew rapidly and'had to he destroyed to give the flax a chance: “ The swamp grasses tmat grew'before the land was (drained died down, and made the danger of fire very great, because the dead grasses burnt rapidly. I believe that there was not a single flax area brought in without a considerable pai/t of it being burnt. This put bacK\the crop, but in no case did 1 \

the fire kill the flax unless the peat was burnt to a considerable depth. After the drains were constructed the flax grew slowly until the ground sweetened. The first crop, and sometimes the second, was light. After this, the land where suitable, yielded a heavy crop, and has continued to do so ever since, in many cases for over thirty years, without showing any sign of deterioration, and without being fertilised. In all cases where the* land has continued to produce a good crop, it is no doubt induced by the fertilisation due to flooding.

Land of good quality that does not flood, in my opinion, will continue to grow first-class flax provided the land is fertilised. It will thus be seen that the present areas of flax in New Zealand have been grown by altering the natural conditions, and that if the alteration suits other plants its well as flax, such plants may be destroyed by cut ting and grabbing. It shows the marvellous fertility of the soil in the Manawntu district when land will produce a crop of flax' every four years of 30 tons to the acre, and in many eases more, and that the crop has been produced without the help of manure except what is deposited by floods. I am of the opinion that to conserve the present areas of flax, different methods of managing the, crops will have to be adopted in the future. This will have to be done for two reasons —to enable, the crop to be fertilised, and to keep down blackberry and other weeds. Blackberry is proving a ciir.se in flax land, and is particularly hard to eradicate because the plants cannot always he found: The crop is c/it every four years, and the last two years of its growth it is so high that it is difficult to find blackberry plants. If any plants fire missed for only a few months in the rich peat land, they spread .so enormously that great damage is done to the flax. : Flax .growers will soon have to decide whether to destroy the crop where blackberry is growing, and übe the land for other purposes, or grub up the present plants and plant again in rows, so that the land can be' worked between the rows, and the blackberry can be found. This would put flax growers to a lot of expense, but probably would pay in the long ran, because the land would produce more flax and he easier to cut. If the replanting were carried out just after cutting, the next crop would be ready just as quickly as if not replanted. In many cases the roots stand too far out of the ground, and replanting would remedy the difficulty. Seeing that the .future of the industry must depend on flax being cultivated, steps should be taken to find out the best flax to plant. If the Government or private individuals would carry mil experiments to find a plant that will give:— (1) A good quality fibre.

(2) Mature quickly, ' (3) Resist disease, and in addition develop a plant that will grow leaves heavier than grow naturally, it would induce people who own suitable land handy to (laxmills to go in for flax cultivation. Should the method of cutting only mature leaves lie adopted, I feel sure that the land would produce a.much higher average of fibre of a more uniform quality, - Millers now remove all the flax in a given ai’ea beeausiyil is cheaper to cut in this way, but if the plant had larger leaves and was planted in rows, the matured leaves could he selected for reaping at about the same expense as under present colfditions.

I have not planted much flax, hut the few experiments carried out have proved to me that, the land should be thoroughly worked befoi-e planting. After the land is planted the weeds should he kept down by working the ground between the rows for about .two years. The crop responds well to manure on ordinary land, -but further experiments will have to be carried out to find the best fertiliser for growing flax. At present the firm I represent have 30 plots, fertilised with ten different mixtures of manure which we were advised to use by an agricultural chemist in order to find,what is best suited to the crop. Those test plots should he a good guide to tlie mixture required for our flax land in the Makerua flax area # T would like (o see experiments carried out in other parts, so dial intending (lax growers would he hi a position to know the best fertiliser to use under till conditions, thus h voiding a lot of waste through spending money on unsuitable immures. FLAX FOR SHELTER.

I would like (o see dairy farmers plant (lax for shelter. It is the only plant I know of that will give good shelter, and also he a source of profit to the fanner. Shelter belts could he made by planting four rows of (lax six feet apart. After the flax has matured, one row could he cut •each year, and the leaf sold to (laxmillers. The land, thus used would return more per acre than when used for dairying. DISEASE OF FLAX.

I now come to flax disease, a question that has engaged the attention of millers a great deal, especially in this district. Until about five years ago people engaged in the industry thought that llax was fairly free from diseases that would destroy the plants. It has always been known that caterpillar damaged the leaf. In a Parliamentary Commission report dated 1870, it. is mentioned that much damage has been done in certain parts by. this pest. About five years ago it was noticed that serious damage was being done to the flax crop bv some unknown disease, which is now called the vellow-leaf disease because

it is first noticed by the leaves going yellow.

About two thousand five hundred acres of flax crop have been dcsiroved by this disease, which appears to first attack the roots. So far no remedy has been found to stay its course, but last summer it was not nearly so destructive as in the previous two years. It is possible that the disease has run its course, or that a natural enemy is keeping the trouble in check. Dr. L. Cockayne has spent a good deal of time investigating this disease for the Makerua flax land owners. The Government has also taken the matter up. The disease made such progress for a liihe that all owners of flax land became thoroughly alarmed.; J . GRADING. 7

Flax grading by the Government has now been in force for some years, and has proved a great success. To show the importance of the industry to the Dominion we will look at the figures showing the quantity of hemp and low exported, ;inil the value, from 1808 to 1918. Total amount of' hemp exported during the period, 434,07(5 tons, value £12,121,52!).

Average amount of' hemp exported per annum for the above period,

20,(570 tons. Average value of hemp and tow combined per year, £G03,05(i. Average price per. ton for hemp, 1808-1018, £27 18s sd. Highest price for hemp (1918) for one year during above period, £55 2s lOd. Lowest price for hemp (1898} for one year during above period, £ls 7s sd. Highest, price for tow (1916) for one year during above period, £lO 15s lid. Lowest price for tow (1904) for one year during above period £3 4s 4d. These figures prove that the flax industry is important to New Zealand, and that the price received for hemp would have enabled llaxmillers to pay a price for the raw material that would have given a handsome profit to the farmer, indeed a better profit than he could have received if growing any other crop: