NEW ZEALAND FLAX

Temuka Leader, Issue 1770, 31 July 1888, Page 4

NEW ZEALAND FLAX

The New Zealand flax industry is said by the Auckland Weekly News to be making splendid returns to those who have engaged in it, especially in the Marlborough and Manawatu districts, where many new mills have been started. According to the Eangitikei Advocate, improvements in the cleaning machinery, coupled with a comparative scarcity in the world’s supply of fibre, have caused this, which some years ago was the occasion of disaster to so many, to be one of the most profitable occupations in the colony. As a guarantee of its permanency, it is said that the failure of the harvest in the principal fibregrowing countries and the consequent diminution of supplies, has made it impossible that there can be any serious decrease in the price for three years at least, and that in the event of a European war, in which .Russia and England took opposing sides, which would, of course, deprive the British market of its Russian imports, flax would enormously increase in value. In Eoxton, owing to this revival, ready money is plentiful, storekeepers are jubilant, and depression has vanished like mist before the morning sun. It is said that one flaxiniller there has concluded a coutract with an Auckland firm, which uses a large amount of fibre, for all fois output at the rate of £l7 per ton on the Eoxton wharf, or £lB at Auckland; and there are people who assert, after comparing liis output wkh his expenses, that this gentleman is making from £55 to £6O per week clear profit. From five to five and a half tons of green flax are required to produce a ton of fibre, aud where flax is moderately plentiful, an acre will produce about 40 tons.