PRICE OF FLAX.

Southland Times, Issue 1208, 11 February 1870, Page 3

PRICE OF FLAX.

♦ (TO THB EDITOB OP IKB TDTE3.") Sib, — Can you explain the meaning of a small paragraph which appeared in yesterday's Jbews, relative to the price being paid for green flax at Timaru. It is most important that at the present moment nothing should occur to mar the development of the new industry, and T cannot help feeling that the quotation referred to will operate most injuriously upon the minds of settlera and others owning land covered with flax. If anything tempts them to demand extortionate prices for the green leaf, or for the privilege of cutting the crop oft their land, they will be taking the first step eflectually to check the enterprise of those prepared to enter upon the manufacture of the fibre, and, as a natural sequence, to destroy their own proospects as producers of a valuable and permanent export. Farmers who have flax land can scarcely deal too liberally with the manufacturer, for upon the latter falls all the risks of the experiment, the trade not having yet advanced to the position of a definite branch of commerce. The immediate benefits to the landowner from the original crop of wild flax, I look npon as not being worthy of comparison with those to result from the establishment of the fibre as a first-class textile article in the markets of Europe, followed, as it would be, by the extensive cultivation of a crop at once native to the soil and climate, and sure of a regular and easily accessible market. The paragraph in the News is as follows : — " In Timaru flaxowners are receiving £5 a ton for the privilege of cutting green flax on their land." Now, Sir, as it takes about 6 tons of leaf to give 1 ton of fibre, it follows that the manufacturers in Timaru are paying £30, exclusive of cutting, cartage, milling, &c, for that for which, according to latest quotations, they can but at most realise £28 in Dunedin. There must be something wrong somewhere, and as even these little rumora are calculated to do much mischief, I trust you will set us right about it. — Yours, &c, Machinist. February 10th, 1870. {Two explanations suggest themselves, either of which will be satisfactory, as both give about the same result with regard to the value of the growing leaf ; the first is that by accident £5 has been stated in place of ss, and the second that £5 is correct, but applies not to the leaf, but to the fibre, the farmer getting £5 per ton for every ton of fibre yielded by his land, he delivering the raw material at the mill.— Ed. S.2 7 .} .