PHORMIUM TENAX.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 61, 6 May 1843, Page 244

PHORMIUM TENAX.

[From the New Zealand Journal, Nov. 12.] The correspondent of the Journal, No. 71, for October Ist, at p. 231, complains that nothing has been done in producing quantities of the fibre of this plant for exportation. Is he aware of the great difficulties which the colonists have to encounter, and how much it must have impeded their progress, not merely in cultivating the plant itself, but in dressing that which is but an indigenous weed ? There are few circumstances connected with the prosperity of the British Empire, of more importance than the successful cultivation of this plant. Let any politician, who has not already examined the subject, read the short paper upon it inserted in the New Zealand Journal, No. l, of February Bth, 1840, p. 7. This indigenous weed of the country is harvested by the ignorant savage as suits bis whim, and who never heard of any science which could be applied for its preservation ; but, after .reading the trials of its strength as stated in the paper to which reference has been made, and the evidence of Mr. Enderby, Captain Fitzroy, and others, it is difficult to believe that it wants anything but cultivation. It is a bulbousrooted plant, of quite a different class to either hemp or flax ; it grows spontaneously, along the shores, on the banks of rivers, in the swamps over hundreds of miles of plains, but still it is but a weed. Every known plant has been improved by cultivation, and none more so than the bulbous-rooted tribe, and it will be well to recall the attention of the colonists at New Zealand to an article inserted in the Journal, No. 62, of May 28th, 1842, recommending their attempting to cultivate this weed, and ascertaining the right season for harvesting it. This must precede the dressing it; it is all very well for the colonists to offer a premium for a machine with which to do it, and it is very well for Sir George Farmer to apply his ingenuity to the same purpose, but it may be surmised that in its present wild state a great deal which is gathered is done so at a wrong season, and that this is the New Zealand flax which breaks at the bend or knot, whilst that which is gathered at the right season forms the material with which nets are made, and the ropes which Mr. Enderby uses in bis South Sea whaling ships. It is but so lately that the colonists even landed, that the seasons are really hardly yet ascertained. Dixon, in his Book on Van Diemen's Land, says, that even there, in 1839, "the diversity of the climate in the different districts is still overlooked; the seasons are scarcely ascertained, and the proper times for sowing remain doubtful, and are adopted irregularly." Much may be expected from the formation of the Horticultural Society and the Botanic Garden at Wellington, which must be extended to New Plymouth and Nelson. In these gardens, and subject to the inspection of gardeners and botanists, trials will be made of prorogating it, not merely by seed, which most probably will throw out many varieties, as the seed of other bulbous roots do, but by the root itself; taking it out of the ground as the potato j and dahlia is treated, during the right season ; but all this must be a work of time. Complainers in England should bear in mind that the settlers never received a title to their landa until September, 1841, and that our present dates are only from March ; there is as yet no reason to find fault -with tlie colonists for delay. The Colonial Office — the Governor sent out by it — checked the exertions of as brave a set of Englishmen as ever combined together for a great public object. It is not surprising that Professor Merivata, in his public lectures at Oxford, should assimilate them to Raleigh and his followers, and the historian will, no doubt, mark those who covered them, as it were, with a damp sponge. Give them but a little time, and Phormium Tenax will be cultivated largely, and turned into cords, nets, and canvass, for exportation; and in all this the politician is as deeply interested as the meritorious individuals that may carry it into execution; with him it is the simple question, whether. British power should be created in the Southern Seas, or whether the maritime power of England should remain dependent upon Russia for its existence. Gentlemen write in England as if all that was necessary, was to go to New Zealand, and there receive from the natives any quantity of readydressed tow or hemp for immediate use. However, their eagerness may be forgiven, since those who thus write, do so, convinced of its political importance, without considering the great difficulties which must attend the turning the greater part of the commerce from Russia to New Zealand ; but it is essential to convince our public men of its necessity, particularly those who form the Board of Trade, and on this account the attention of Mr. M'Gregor, Mr. Gladstone, Lord Ripon, and Sir Robert Peel, is particularly called to the article to which reference has already been made, viz., at p. 7, of No. 1 of the New Zealand Journal, of February 8, 1840 : a more important political paper is hardly in existence. W.