LINEN FIBRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 August 1938, Page 3

LINEN FIBRE

DEPARTMENTAL WORK. An interesting development in Otago farming, to which attention has been directed this year as a result ofthe experimental activities of the Department of Agriculture, concerns the production of linen .fibre, which to judge by recent trials in various parts of the province is capable of profitable establishment. During the past 12 months the department has been paying special attention to six trials —two in North Otago, one in the Waikouaiti district, one in the Strath-Taieri district at Middlemarch, and two in South Otago—and it is understood that these will be followed up in the coming.year with more extensive plots. The investigations to date have shown that linen fibre can definitely be grown. in Otago. Production from all. six plots was excellent this year, and some of the produce has already been forwarded to Christchurch to be tested for its fibre quality. Other Otagogrown sheaves have also been consigned to Great Britain to be more exhaustively tested, particularly to see how the locally-produced fibre compares with the material which is the basis of the famous Irish linen. The value of the trials, however, is not confined to the production of linen fibre, as the Otago plots, which, . it' should be stated, covered a widely varying range of climatic and soil conditions, produced good yields of linseed grain, which should find a ready •market in the Dominion as a stock food. Farmers who have co-operated with the Department of Agriculture in these experiments have stated thati they have been greatly impressed by the possibilities of this crop, and they are more than willing to continue working with the department in more extensive investigations next -season.