11 



THE "FLAX FAMILY," ORDER LINE^, 



follows the three preceding orders in a direct line of botanical 

 relationship, according to Hooker and Bentham's standard work, 

 the Genera Plantarum. The birthplace of the flax (Linum 

 usitatissimum) is supposed to be Asia, but it is found all over 

 Europe, particularly in the south. The cultivation of this annual 

 has now an almost world-wide distribution. Fine liuen or mummy 

 cloth was used by the Egyptians 1200 years B.C. Indeed the 

 plant seems to have been cultivated from the remotest antiquity, 

 manufactured flax having been discovered in the pre-hisloric lake 

 cities of Switzerland. 



The uses to which flax can be put are almost innumerable, but 

 the principal are the manufacture of linen, lace, holland, drills, 

 sheeting, shirting, and clothes of many kinds, table-cloths, floor- 

 cloths, sail-cloth or canvas tents, woolpacks and bagging, paper, 

 cambric, string, twine, sewing thread, cord, &c., while the refuse 

 fibre is utilized for packing for steam-engines, &c., and the seeds 

 for oil, oilcake, arid linseed meal. 



That good marketable flax has been grown in Victoria is proved 

 by the fact that Mr. James Miller, the rope merchant of this city, 

 has given as much as £40 per ton for some grown in Gippsland, 

 and a few weeks ago he showed me a splendid sample, fully 

 2 feet in length, that was produced at Yarram (South Gippsland), 

 where there are about 100 acres or more now under cultivation. 

 Mr. Miller also told me that a number of growers there have just 

 formed themselves into a co-operative company for the purpose 

 of developing the industry, and that 100 acres more (oO at Orbost 

 and 50 at Glengarry) have been sown down this season. I am 

 informed also that Mr. D. F. Mackenzie, who is an enthusiastic 

 believer in the ultimate value of the Victorian-grown article, has 

 been good enough to grant the farmers at Yarram the use of 

 a water-power engine and turbine, to drive certain machinery 

 useful in connexion with the preparation of the flax for market, 

 and that a skilled man, approved by the growers, is to be ap- 

 pointed to superintend the work. This, it must be admitted, is a 

 step in the right direction. No doubt better encouragement will 

 be given to the rope manufacturers here if the flax is carefully 

 prepared, kept up to a good standard quality, and if a regular 

 yearly supply can be depended upon. It may be said of flax, as 

 of sugar cane and many other crops, that the product is made in 

 the field. The crop must be well cultivated. Flax will succeed 

 in any place where wheat will grow, and as well inland, north or 

 south, in this colony as near the coast ; moreover, it will flourish 

 in soil that will produce inferior crops of grain. It delights in 

 soil in which its roots can ramify freely, such as that of the rich 

 uplands and river flat lands of Gippsland, or the fine loam found 



