TREATMENT OF FLAX.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2873, 21 April 1925, Page 2

TREATMENT OF FLAX.

REPORTED NEW PROCESS,

WILL NOT AEFECIT DOMINION INDUSTRY. In connection with the cabled message from Londofi on Thursday announcing that Dr. Pratchard, a septuagenarian Canadian, had in\ented a machine whereby the method of retting and scutching (lax, which lias been unchanged for thousands of years, can be carried <-nl in live or six hours instead of six weeks, thereby eliminating labour and probably making linen as cheap as cotton, a Standard reporter yesterday saw Mr A. Seifert, the well-known flax expert, to see what effect, if any, the invention would have on the in(histrv in the Dominion.

MY Soiferl at once pointed out that what is commonly known in New Zealand as flax is not really such, the Now Zealand plant being allied to the lily family. The true llax, which the cable referred to, had been grown in the Dominion in small quantities, Mr Seifert himself having grown some for experimental purposes. He mentioned that the New Zealand Native phormium tenax did not go through the retting process, stripping being employed instead. With the true flax stripping could not be employed, as it would chop the fibre up. Describing tbe retting process, Mr Seifert stated it consisted of rotting away the stalk of the flax by fermentation, leaving the fibre intact. Any shortening of the period of retting would therefore not a fleet the New Zealand industry.