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, 

 a veraging two feet long by three-quarters of an inch in wid th j 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 of all 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 

 luxuriance. 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. 



T]ie Pliormium attains its greatest size b}^ 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 w4th 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 



