28 THE LEAF-FIBRE OF NEW ZEALAND FLAX. 
manufactory was also recently established at Christchurch, by A. 
Cameron, who exhibited specimens of his “ half-stuff” in the New 
Zealand Exhibition of 1865. Flax-mills have been of late erected in 
Otago, by Mr. Constable, at Pelichet Bay, Dunedin, and by Mr. Mans- 
ford on the Cluthe, Port Molyneux. The former mill was, in June, 
1867, examined and reported upon on behalf of the Otago Govern- 
ment by my friend J. T. Thomson, C.E., the provincial engineer : 
* The manufacture,” he says, ** I consider a complete success." Con- 
stable's mill turns out 3 cwt. of fibre per day, and can produce 30 
ewt. per week. The epidermis and gum are separated partly by che- 
mical, partly by mechanical means; the resultant fibre is said to be of 
excellent quality, and to promiseto be marketable at a moderate price.* 
But, alas! similarly favourable reports have been made over and over 
again as to New Zealand flax, and yet it has no permanent place in 
the fibre market. Timealone can show how far, in this instance, these 
promises will be performed,— whether these anticipations are not, 
like so many of their predecessors, doomed to disappointment. 
Applicability to the Manufacture of Cordage.—Yhe value of New 
Zealand flax as a material for cordage, has been better tested and 
longer established than its applicability to the manufacture of textile 
fabrics or paper. E. W. Frent, of Brooksby Walk, Homerton, rope 
and twine spinner, exhibited specimens of the dressed flax and of rope, 
twine, etc., made from it in the International Exhibition of London, in 
1851; and in 1863 he gave much information as to its use in rope 
spinning, especially in contrast with Russian hemp, in the * New Zea- 
land Examiner’ (September 15th, p. 207). It is suitable especially 
he says, for bale-rope and bolt-rope. He regards it as unfair to em- 
loy the same processes of manufacture as in Russian hemp. He 
establishes, indeed,—apparently satisfactorily,—the strength and use- 
fulness of the fibre, when properly prepared ; but the question of cost 
of production of a marketable article, such as to leave a profit and still 
be under the price of European hemp and flax, is still left—by such 
experiments as his—as ¢he great question for determination by the 
colonist. Thomson regards Constable’s Dunedin fibre as equal to 
Manilla hemp ; he anticipates it will compete with Manilla in the ma- 
nufacture of the better qualities of rope in the Melbourne market, 
* * Otago Daily Times, July 27th, 1867. 
