Chap. Xn. FLAX-TRADE HITHERTO UNSUCCESSFUL. 285 
colony than in England, we calculated that the hack- 
ling, or other purifying process, would be most advan- 
tageously performed in England ; and resolved to pack 
the rough-scraped fibre for exportation, as the 12 per 
cent, of chaff could not create an unnecessary surplus of 
freight equal to the difference between the cost of labour 
in hackling in the two countries. 
The event has as yet proved unsuccessful ; and those 
who engaged in the speculation know to their cost 
that it has not been profitable. We had to pay the 
natives at the rate of 9/. per ton at their own resi- 
dences. The goods which we paid them were furnished 
by merchants in Wellington at a very high rate of 
profit; the difficulties of carrying the goods and the 
bales of fibre in small craft and boats to and fro 
between the scattered stations and Wellington, and the 
wages of agents at each station, increased the cost to 
1 5/. per ton delivered in the port : and the incomplete 
apparatus existing for pressing and packing the fibre 
into bales was both costly and inefficient ; for it cost Si. 
more per ton to pack and put on board ship, while a 
ton weight was not compressed into less than nearly two 
tons' measurement. Moreover, the respective merits of 
the different kinds of the phormium tenax were not yet 
known, nor was the most suitable time for cutting the 
leaf ascertained ; and the natives, finding they could get 
the same utu for any kind, continued to cut all the year 
round, and were careless as to mixing what was made 
from three or four species of the plant, varying essen- 
tially in their qualities. They probably also neglected 
the proper time and manner of drying after the scrape. 
All these particulars could only be ascertained by some 
length of experience and observation. The bales, too, 
were often wetted in salt water, when taken through 
surf to a schooner or carried in a leaky craft ; and most 
