FLAX CULTURE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IV, Issue 211, 8 September 1869, Page 2

FLAX CULTURE.

In the course of the debate on Mr Hall's motion, for appointing a Flax Commission, the followiug remarks on the culture of flax were made hy Mr Macfarlane: — He had sown in his garden a large quantity of seed, and if it succeeded he expected to find the plants above ground by the time he returned to Auckland. For this culture the mould must be the finest that could be got; the seed umst be spread over it; and upon the seed sand, to the thickness of a penny piece, but not more, should be carefully laid. Fine soil might be used instead of sand, if the latter was not easily procurable. If there was but little or no rain an occasional watering would Be needed, to give a start to growth. If he succeeded in getting plants, he intended to transplant them to suitable places for experimental culture. Transplanting might be done by either of two ways ; by carefully digging up the plant and its roots, placing three plants in a hole about a foot square, and carefully covering up the roots a»ain, — he believed from trials that that was a very successful mode. The other one was to plough a field, and, taking up the plants as before described, to plant them in rows eight or nine feet apart, so arranging them that only in alternate rows were two plants in a line with each other, which would leave plenty of space for each to grow. He would try this plan, aud would in some way make public the results. He knew a gentleman in the North who last year had fifty acres planted in the way he had described. That gentleman cut and prepared the flax, and the result was £8 an acre clear, after paying all expenses. The same gentleman had this year planted 100 acres, and he expected to realise more than £8 per acre. The yield per acre last year was about a ton of dressed fibre, the product of from four to six tons of undressed flax. - LW- - i i i i I. i —