26 
REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR OF THE 
could desire because of the following facts. The article is gathered by 
the natives, and sold by them in Auckland at £10 per ton, and as the 
New Zealand Government has taken the wise and business-like course 
to cause the fibre plants of the country to be brought into a state for 
exportation to England, by an offer of a reward of £2,000 to the first 
person who will, by his own invention produce forty tons of Phormium 
tenax, so prepared as not to exceed £25 per cwt. (?) in cost, making 
ready for market, and £1,000 reward to the next five persons who may 
join and work up twenty tons by anyone’s invention so as to produce 
the same advantage. Such rewards induced me to * try again/ and the 
result of my labours on a bale sent me by Messrs. Gibbs, Bright & Co., 
of Liverpool, has caused me to receive from one of the best judges of 
Flax in England the following letter : — 
“ ‘ Alma Terrace, Kensington, 
October 17th, 1863. 
(< 1 Dear Sir, — The sample of New Zealand Flax ( Phormium tenax ) you have 
sent me may be worth from £40 to £50 per ton for coarse spinning purposes, hut 
much depends upon liow it turns out in heckling; the finer quality is in my 
opinion worth about £60 per ton. 
“ ‘ Yours truly, 
(Signed), “ ‘ J. K. Atkinson. 
“ ‘ Mr. J. H. Dickson.’ 
Mr. Atkinson is the retired partner of the firm of Messrs. Hives and 
Atkinson, Flax Spinners, Leeds.” Mr. Dickson further on says: — “As 
a practical man, I am confident that the New Zealand Flax ( Pliormium 
tenax) must come in for the trade of Dundee over the head of Flax, as 
Jute by itself can never, so long as it is ruined in India by the retting 
or steeping system, be worked as a warp yarn unless mixed with Flax.” 
The following extract on the “New Fibre plants of Commerce,” taken 
from the Hour , and which appeared in the Melbourne Argus of March 
28th, 1876, will further show the value of the phormium : — “Just at 
the present when the supply of flax is very short, and is thereby 
subjecting many manufacturers in different parts of the country to 
considerable inconvenience, we are desirous of calling the attention of 
those who may be interested in the subject to the Phormium tenax of 
botanists or Native Flax of New Zealand — ( A slight mistahe is here 
made by the writer of the article , the name Native Flax, is applied in 
New Zealand to Linum monogynum , which is a true fax. The 
phormium is hnown as the Flax Lily or New Zealand Flax) — which is 
found on the hills and in the valleys of every province in its islands, but 
which has excited comparatively little notice in Great Britain. For 
