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tenacity to the European flax and hemp-fibre. 1 Consequently, when 
the great value of the New Zealand flax-plant was fully known, 
trials were made to acclimatize it in England and France. The 
attempts made, however, appear to have miscarried. It is only 
in botanical gardens that the plant became domesticated. It seems 
exceedingly surprising that, considering the immense quantities of 
flax yearly consumed by England, and imported principally from 
Russia , 2 the New Zealand flax has not long since become one of 
the chief articles of export from New Zealand. The cause of this is 
that it is extremely difficult to prepare the fibre sufficiently pure 
for the market , and to produce large quantities of such flax at 
moderate prices. It is only quite lately , that this appears to have 
been accomplished with complete success. 
The phormium leaf, — like the leaves and stems of other 
fibrous plants, such as hemp, flax, the American aloe (Agave), etc. 
— consists of cellular trusses, which run out over the whole length 
of the leaf and are wrapped in the green substance of the plant, 
the so-called parenchyma. The cellular trusses in their turn consist 
of two parts, the wood-part and the bast-part; the bast -part con- 
stitutes the serviceable fibre. In order to obtain the latter, it is 
necessary to sever the parenchyma and the wood-part of the cellular 
trusses from the bast-part. The cellular tissue of those parts being 
far more easily injured, than the spindle-shaped, thick-coated and 
elastic bast-cells , the separation can be brought about by destroy- 
ing and removing that cellular tissue either by maceration, without 
injuring the bast-cells, or by mechanical force. A combined pro- 
cess is frequently applied as in the treatment of flax , which is 
first exposed to a kind of putrid fermentation on the dew- or 
water-steep; then dried, and finally braked, swingled and combed. 
1 Lindly states the tenacity of the New Zealand flax-fibre in a comparative 
synopsis as follows: 
Silk 34 
New Zealand flax 23 
European flax 16 
European hemp 11. 
2 In 1856 the value of flax and hemp imported is said to have amounted to 
nearly 6 mill, pounds sterling. 
