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remainder in water, and afterwards scraping (the primitive method 

 as practised by the natives from time immemorial). This — no 

 doubt a slow and tedious process — produces the finest and softest 

 flax, but it is evident that in order to keep pace with commer- 

 cial requirements some more expeditious plan of dressing it by 

 machinery has had to be adopted. The second is by maceration 

 for several weeks, which tends somewhat to injure and weaken 

 the fibre ; and the third by boiling in a caustic solution for 33 

 hours. The last process is a vast saving of time and trouble, but 

 it weakens the fibre and imparts a dark colour, which can, how- 

 -ever, be removed by artificial bleaching. Samples can also be 

 prepared in the same way from the variegated-leaved variety, 

 which have been proved to be much finer and stronger in quality 

 and more easily prepared than the green-leaved form. According 

 to Sir James Hector, " there has been one almost universal method 

 of manufacture by Europeans in New Zealand having for its 

 object the production of fibre for rope making. The green leaves 

 are stripped by revolving rollers, with projecting beaters, travel- 

 ling at a high rate of speed, which crush the epidermis against a 

 fixed plate, so set as to allow room for the fibre to remain intact. 

 The fibre thus freed from the leaf of the plant is washed by 

 various methods, put on the ground or on lines to dry and bleach, 

 finished by an arm or barrel-scutch, and when baled is ready 

 for market." Machine-dressed fibre is said to be in great 

 demand for the production of twine for harvesting purposes, 

 and that "no fibre makes twine that is so suitable for this 

 special use.^' 



The Phormium tenax was introduced into the south of Ireland 

 as long ago as 1798, and a company established soon afterwards 

 ■for its cultivation, but the slow growth it made caused the project 

 "to be abandoned. No later than three years ago I saw some 

 specimens doing remarkably well in gardens at Dublin, Cork, the 

 Lakes of Killarney, also in parts of England and the west coast 

 of Scotland.* Sir James Hector says " that when the colonists 

 first arrived in New Zealand the valuable qualities of the Phor- 

 mium fibre were well known, as it was in constant use by the 

 natives, and a very considerable trade in the article existed as 

 early as 1828, when the islands were only visited by whalers and 

 Sydney traders, as £50,000 worth of the fibre was sold in Sydney 

 alone between 1828 and 1832." With regard to the cultivation 

 of the plant in this colony, it is sufficient to say that it might be 



* Professor Boulger, in his valuable little T\ori, The Uses of Plants (1889). states "that 

 Phormium tenax is now grown successfully in the Orkney Islands. The demand exceeds 

 the supply, and though there are several varieties or qualities of the fibre, better rope can be 

 made from if even than from Musa textilis, and it sells at from £17 to £22 per ton, the refuse 

 ■only being used for paper." 



