NEW ZEALAND HEMP.

Southland Times, Issue 1584, 28 May 1872, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND HEMP.

At a recent meeting of the Colonists' Protection Society (Auckland), Mr Every Maclean read the following letter, addressed to the Hon. the Defence Minister by a settler of experience at Opotiki, Mr Thomas Black : — As many have taken in hand to give directions on cultivation and dressing of our New Zealand flax, permit me here to add that few, if any, of all these reports and contributions are worth the paper on which they are written. Varieties.— l may briefly state that there are only three or four varieties really worth cultivation, and that alone by transplanting ; the propagation or reariug by seed can only be carried out by practical horticulturists by way of experiment, requiring time, shade, shelter, and moisture. First in order stands paretaniwa, from the length of its silky, golden fibre, ease of dressing, rapidity of growth, and product in fibre ; in either flax or rope very few could distinguish it from Manilla ; the reed is longer and not of so coarse a uature. Second, owe is next in value to the above, by some erroneously called tihore ; fibre softer in nature than the first, cuts down more into tow in dressing ; fibre one-third less. Transplanting. — Transplant in drills five feet wide, one single fan in each hole, four feet apart from plant to plant, and keep free from weeds ; no cutting worth notice before the third year ; nor can any flax field, no matter how- rich, be cut over twice in one year. Even the best flax swamps will not produce more than half the second year they gave the first. The native practice was to cut every second year, and no person was permitted to break these rules. Natives going for flax did not cut it down indiscriminately : they took their knife and shell to test each bush before cutting ; they did not believe in carrying home the immature or dry and husky brittle leaf, and after cutting their cultivated flax tbey spread the scraping around the roots, as a kiud of mulching, to re-invigorate the bushes. Dressing. — The separation of the gum has always been one great difficulty, but it should be taken, when dressed, and i thoroughly washed ; not aa I have seen,

a shake with the hand in a puddle of slush and green muck, betraying the ignorance of those concerned. Flax from r the mill requires the action of the wash--3 mill used with Irish linen, then spread r out thinly for ten days un<ler the action } of sun, rain, and dew ; this will disintegl rate the fibre, purge it of sjura, render it ! pliable and kindly, as done with Irish. t flax, and by natives with all flux used by • them for making mats, either coarse or 1 fine. I may here refer to experiments made with native-dresaed flax. After i receiving a partial drying on poles it was . packed up, placed in a warm house, and covered wit.n scrapings and other matter 1 for two or three weeks to mellow, and on coming to about the usual body heat, reversed for a further time ; this partial fermentation had a very great effect. It was then rolled up in coarse netting, steeped for one night in a current of fresh water, well trampled on and jerked in the netting, spread out for a few days, dried and scutched by hand. It was then found fit for most manufacturing purposes. It would, of course, lose much in weight, and this, with want of a market, op any purpose to apply auch flax to, chilled every effort to improvement. The complaint that rope made of this flax does not hold the tar is in part true ; i. c., with either native or European dressing, the cause is. it has not Jbeen properly divested of bark, gum, and other glutinous matter. This is from want of being well washed, and that. alone. For thirty^tsro years I have used this rope in my own vessels with every satisfaction, and may further say I have had more practical experience with this flax than any man in New Zealand. Durability. — In March, 1856, I had standing rigging made out of some nativedressed paretaniwafor the schooner Hope, and in 1864 had it transhipped to the schooner Fortune ; it then looked as well as ever, and at present, August, 1871, after fifteen years and six months' constant wear, trifling chafe by runner Bails only excepted, it looks as well as on the first day. No European rope ever held the tar better ; and as to stretching or shrinking, it has not required setting up more than five times these fifteen year*. There it stands like iron bars, impervious alike to wet, heat, and cold. I hereby invite our Auckland friends to inspect this rigging on the Fortune, at Queen street Wharf, as an antidote to a paragraph by some raving scribbler to the Home News, July 15, 1870, and I refer to Mr Neill Lloyd, Ponsonby Eope Works, who then conducted my rope works at Matata, Bay of Plenty, and to Captain Daniel Sellars, who put up the rigging in April, 1856. Bopemakers' Combination. — European hemp and flax is dry and clear of gum and vegetable matter. If you employ ropemakers to make up hemp or flax into rupe, they return you weight for weight, i.e., same weight of rope as you delivered of raw material, and hackle it into the bargain ; they, of course, get the tow. The secret is, the material is of a dry nature, and is mixed up with tar and coarse oils ; thus they ean^offortl t" ioiimi* weight for weight. New Zealand flax, being partly charged with gum and vegetable mucilage, will not receive the quantity of tar in which their profit is principally supposed to lie. As to oil, our flax does not receive it well ; it softens the rope, and causes it to spue the tar. This is the tender pomt — it touches trade secrets, and customaryhabits of long standing. If we can give them a dry, fossy article, that will hold and swallow oil and tar, our market is made. This must be done."