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28 THE LEAF-FIBEE OF NEW ZEALAND FLAX.
manufactory was also recently established at Christchurch, by A.
Caraeron, who exhibited specimens of his "half-stufl'" in the New
Zealand Exhibition of 1865. Flax-mills have been of late erected in
Otago, by Mr. Constable, at Pelichet Bay, Dunedin, and by Mr. Mans-
ford on the Cluthe, Port Molyneux. The former mill was, in June,
1867, examined and reported upon on behalf of the Otago Govern-
ment by my friend J. T. Thomson, C.E., the provincial engineer :
" The manufacture," he says, " I consider a cornplete success." Con-
stable's mill turns out 3 cwt. of fibre per day, and can produce 30
cwt. per w^ek. The epidermis and gum are separated partly by che-
mical, partly by mechanical means ; the resultant fibre is said to be of
excellent quality, and to promise to he marketable at a moderate price.*
But, alas ! similarly favourable reports have been made over and over
again as to New Zealand flax, and yet it has no permanent place in
the fibre market. Time alone can show how far, in this instance, these
promises will be performed,—whether these anticipations are not,
like so many of their predecessors, doomed to disappointment.
ApplicahUliy to the Mmiufaciure of Cordage.—The value of New
Zealand flax as a material for cordage, has been better tested and
longer established than its applicability to the manufacture of textile
fabrics or paper. E. W. Frent, of Brooksby Walk, Homerton, rope
and twine spinner, exhibited specimens of the dressed flax and of rope,
twine, etc., made from it in the International Exhibition of London, in
1851; and in 1863 he gave much information as to its use in rope
spinning, especially in contrast with Russian hemp, in the ' New Zea-
land Examiner' (September 15th, p. 207). It is suitable especially
he says, for bale-rope and bolt-rope. He regards it as unfair to employ
the same processes of manufacture as in Russian hemp. He
establishes, indeed,—apparently satisfactorily,—the strength and use-
fulness of the fibre, when properly prepared ; but the question of cost
of production of a markdahle article, such as to leave a profit and still
be under the price of European hemp and flax, is still left—by such
experiments as his—as the great question for determination by the
colonist. Thomson regards Constable's Dunedin fibre as equal to
Manilla hemp ; he anticipates it will compete with Manilla in the ma-
nufacture of the better qualities of rope in the Melbourne market,
* ' Otago Diiily Times,' July 27th, 1867.