358 Transactions. — Botany. 
Some few attempts have been made at cultivation, but the slowness of 
growth of transplanted sets, and the great expense, have not given capitalists 
much encouragement to form plantations on a large scale for the supply of the 
raw material. It was found that the average rate of multiplication of sets did 
not exceed six in three years, and even at the end of that period the plants 
were not sufficiently established to supply a succession of well-grown leaves 
for manufacture, whilst the first cost of planting was very expensive, and in 
the case of a field of twenty-five acres near Patea was as much as £18 per 
acre, exclusive of fencing and clearing the ground. 
Seeds sown in the Botanic Gardens at Wellington in the month of 
November, 1870, were above ground in twenty days, but at the end of ten 
months the most vigorous plants were not more than a foot in length, and 
others sown in a nursery garden near Wanganui, in soil of the richest possible 
description, from two to four feet deep, and irrigated in hot weather, after a 
growth of sixteen months were only single fans of four or five leaves, 
averaging two feet long by three-quarters of an inch in width ; and it was 
evident that they would require several years more to grow into a bush which 
would bear cutting for fibre ; although seeds of only the best varieties of tihore 
were sown, the young seedlings did not show any marked resemblance to the 
parent plants, but were ofall varieties of colour. 
In a large flax field, where all sorts of varieties may be found, the plants 
growing in the same description of soil are much of one size ; the luxuriance 
of growth depends not on the variety, but on the nature of the soil in which 
they have established themselves. To illustrate this I have here several 
fans of the rataroa, one of the best varieties of tihore, grown at St. John’s 
College from sets that were procured by Bishop Selwyn some twenty-five years 
ago from the East Cape. You will observe how greatly they vary in size and 
Juxuriance. The large fan, with leaves nine or ten feet long, is from a plant 
which grew in the lowest, wettest, and richest part of a drained gully. The 
other specimen grew on a poor clay hillock ; and there is every gradation 
between the two, according as the soil was wet and good, or poor and dry ; 
yet they are all the same variety, and I believe the fibre is equally good 
for manufacturing purposes from each—it is, at least, as strong, and can be 
stripped out in Maori fashion with the same facility. 
The Phormium attains its greatest size by the banks of streams, where 
there is plenty of running water to nourish the roots. In very wet stagnant 
Swamps it is never so good, but improves immediately the swamps are drained. 
The information obtained by the Commissioners with respect to the growth 
of the leaves was not so exact, as sufficient time to make the necessary 
observations had not been afforded them. They, however, ascertained from a 
variety of testimony that if a flax plant were cut quite down, there would be 
