NEW ZEALAND FLAX.

Southland Times, Issue 1157, 1 November 1869, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND FLAX.

(From the Southern Cross.) The earliest difficulties of young Flax are surmounted. Its value is recognised. A market is open to receive it. The more that market is fed the more feeding it will require. Manufacturers of artu-lea in which the flax may be employed, and such articles are numerous, \esitate to alter their machinery, to enable them to use it to the best advantage) until they feel assured that there is no danger of the supply falling off. Still, whatever flax goes home in marketable shape finds ready purchase. Much remains to be done before the beat mode of attaining that marketable shape is arrived at, nor is it certain that the best marketable shape is yet understood ; and for the gum with which the flax is encumbered a marketable use has not been found. So there is much to be done in the way of improvement and discovery ; still, as it is, with crude machinery and cruder appliances, large profits can be made. Even though machinery is only used to bruise and scutch the flax, and manual labor has to remove the stuff, to wash it, to spread it to dry, and to pack it, a man with a few pounds of capital may obtain splendid results. But the time cannot be distant when machinery will receive the green stuff and turn out j the fibre ready for packing. The more persons who engage in the industry, the sooner it is likely that the desired improvements will be] {effected. It is gratifying to think that even the attractions of the fascinating Thames have not altogether diverted attention in this province from the industry which will outlast the Thames, and we write this with the full' conviction that no richer goldfield has ever been found. Auckland may still be considered most advanced in respect not only to the quantity of flax produced but the mode of production. In other provinces th« flax "rush" is setting in but slowly, with the exception of Taranaki, where the people are waking to new life under the influence of flax. A considerable proportion of the population is preparing to enter into its production ; large tracks of land are being acquired for the purpose, and a new ton nship in the midst of the flax district is to be surveyed. At Patea also, flax is beginning to war with the native difficulty. Settlers there are proposing to "go in" for flax with the industry and vigor which have distinguished them hitherto in the pursuits they followed. In Canterbury there is a little attention devoted to it, something less in Hawke's Buy and Nelson, and Otago and Southland are not altogether neglecting it. A provincial competition in flax will be even better than a quartz reef and gold field discovery competition — although this has its valuable and manifold uses.