15 



pith, is done by machinery, and the fibre is then ready for the- 

 manufacturer. Our own Australian native flax (Linum marginale) 

 produces a very fine silky fibre of long staple, but, with the 

 exception of a few samples produced in our laboratory, I have- 

 never heard of it having been tried elsewhere. 



A FEW OTHER FIBRE-YIELDING PLANTS FOR 



TEST CULTURE. 



The "Bean aud Pea family" (Leguminosse) supplies few fibre- 

 yielding plants of value. Crotalaria juncea, however, the " Snnu- 

 Hemp," which is an annual abounding in India, and found wild 

 also in pai-ts of tropical Australia, produces a useful fibre almost 

 equal to jute; but as the plant is not sufficiently hardy in Victoria 

 to be worthy of extensive cultivation I need not enter into further 

 particulars concerning it. Some 50,000 acres, Spon informs us, 

 are occupied by it in the Pimjab. 



In the " Spurge Laurel family " (Thymelseaceai) we have 

 several species of Piraelea indigenous to Victoria and to other 

 parts of Australia that yield fibre suitable for string and paper 

 pulp. Pimelea axiflora, known by the early Victorian settlers as 

 " tough bark," and P. clavata, a shrub of 8 or 9 feet, and native 

 of West Australia, thrive well under cultivation, and yield strong 

 fibres, which may be considered valuable for textile manufacture. 

 Dais cotinifolia, or "African Button Flower" — a small tree allied 

 to the Pimeleas — produces not only a fibre of fine quality but also 

 a rich yellow dye. 



The "Spurge-wort family^' (Euphorbiace^e), to which order the 

 castor oil, croton oil, and Cassava plants belong, supplies us with 

 a small shrub, Amperea spartioides, the fibre of which being 

 soft and silky, although dark in colour, may yet prove useful for 

 many purposes. It is found growing in quantity in Gippsland 

 and other parts of the colony. 



To the "Nettle family" (Urticaceje) belong many important 

 fibre plants, notably the true hemp and the "Ramie," "Rheea," or 

 "Grass-cloth plant" of the Chinese. The hemp plant (Cannabis 

 sativa), an annual often attaining a height of 18 feet or more in 

 warm latitudes, is indigenous to Central and Western Asia, but 

 has long been naturalized in Brazil, Canada, aud Venezuela, also 

 in tropical Africa, and is extensively cultivated in Italy, France, 

 Spain, Germany, and many other European countries, particularly 

 Russia and Poland. In India, besides the lo'^N'-lands, it is culti- 

 vated as high up in the Himalayas as 9,000 or 10,000 feet. Hemp 

 grown in England is said to be of superior quality, but the plant 

 does not pay the farmers in consequence of the immense quanti- 

 ties imported, and very little of it is grown. The average yield 

 per acre there is from 6 to 8 cwt, of fibre, and from 14 to 16 



