NEW ZEALAND HEMP.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVII, Issue 3550, 15 July 1872, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND HEMP.

• The following extracts from a letter from Mr C. Thorpe, London, are pub lished in the Lyttelton Times by the Canterbury Flax Association ; " I may now safely say that if I had in my hands, at the present time, a large quantity, say, 40 or 50 tons of fibre, equal in quality to that from which the fabrics already sent you have been made, I could place it with manufacturers, and so get its market value fully established. At first it must be sold cheap, so as to induce the manufacturers to prove to themselves its value ; but within a short time it would take up its position and recoup those wbo kept up the regular supply for any loss they might have sustained on the first shipments. Even now I think thero would not be any appreciable loss, for the exertions and practical experiments carried through by Mr A. R. Forbes most clearly prove the adaptability of the New Zealand fibre for many of the textile fabrics at present manufactured exclusively from Riga flax and Italian hemp. " I have just sent to Mr Forbes about half a ton of long fibre and half a ton of tow, whicli he intends using for his own purposes, as he considers experiments, so far as he is concerned, at an end. He writes me it ia his intention to mix it with Italian hemp, and says, I daresay I shall send you come fine samples of cloth from the mixed yarns. " My Irish friend thought my fibre too coarse for the fabrics he makes, and asked if I could procure him something finer, as he was anxious to prove himself whether the fibre, when thoroughly cleaned, would mako a yarn fine enough for a table cloth. He promised to give personal attention throughout the trial, so Dr Featherston and Mr Buller were kind enough to give me about 2 cwt, and this has now gone to bo put to a strong test. It will certainly take some time to carry this experiment carefully through, probably two months, as at each stage delay will occur in writing until work in hand allows a spinningframe or loom to be devoted to the experiment. "So far as I am concerned. I must consider my experiments in England at an end, for the difficulty I experience in getting leaf sufficiently fine enough for textile purposes, and the rise in price of the raw material, excludes me from proceeding further, more especially as I have succeeded in clearly proving that tho fibre, when prepared as I do it, can be used by manufacturers, and also that ropo made from coarser fibre stands very severe tests."