6
PROGRESS REPORT OF THE FLAX COMMISSIONERS.

extending over a long series of years, may sometimes arrive at processes of such perfection that the
best scientific observation and experiment cannot improve upon them. The European flax manufac-
ture furnishes us with a good example. The value of retting flax, or causing it to undergo fermenta-
tion, was no doubt discovered ages ago by haphazard observation. Scientific observation has shown
that the original object for which flax was retted—namely, the separation of the fibres from the woody
tissue—is not in reality so important as its further object of separating the ultimate fibres from one
another; and, in order to avoid the delay and loss occasioned by retting, scientific experiment has
invented machines to detach the fibre from the wood. But all these machines have proved
failures, because science cannot discover any process equal to retting for separating ultimate fibres;
all it has done is to improve on the process, and reduce the time required for the operation. On the
other hand, science is sometimes able in a few years entirely altered the whole
of any manufacture with the view of trying to improve it,
carefully the processes which have been formerly used, and
when we turn to the manufacture of New Zealand flax,
observations and experiments of the Maoris, for they pro-
of colour that we cannot yet approach; neither are our
machines capable of producing a material of that oiliness of feel and glossiness of appearance which is

seen in their best hand-prepared Tihore.
The Maoris used two different processes for different kinds of flax. With the best kinds (Tihore),
they simply tore out the fibre, rubbed it together in their hands to open the bundles, and removed
the small quantity of tissue that remained by scraping it with their nails. The inferior kinds (Haro)
they first scraped with a shell, having sometimes previously steeped it in water to soften the skin;
they then soaked it in water for from two to four days, then beat it with stones while it was wet, and
scraped it again; then soaked it again, and then bleached it and dried it on poles; and they then beat it
with sticks to remove the remaining tissue. For this information I am indebted to Mr. Preece's paper
in the New Zealand Church Almanac, 1848, and to Mr. J. A. Wilson, who has lately taken great trouble
to ascertain from the Thames Natives their former mode of preparation. It will thus be seen that the
main features of the system they employed for the commoner kinds of flax are very similar to those
which we now employ; for in both the fibre is first cleaned by mechanical means from the tissue of
the leaf, it is then soaked in water, dried, and beaten before being sent to market; and those mills which
depart from this system, either by boiling their flax, or by only rinsing it in a stream, instead of
soaking it, produce an inferior quality of fibre. We have, however, no process as yet that answers to
beating on stones while wet, and I have not yet satisfied myself as to the object which was intended to
be attained by this process. It might have been to break up the fibrous bundles and make them more
silky, or it might have been to break up the cellular tissue that remained, so as to allow their contents
to escape in the second soaking; or it might only have been to help the removal of the tissue by the
second scraping. If the first was their main object, it would be worth while to try to discover a process
by which we could also effect it, but in a more economical manner; but if either of the latter was the
object, it would be unnecessary for us, as our machines, by one process, clean the fibre much better
than both the scrapings of the Maoris.

If, however, science has not as yet improved upon the system, it has greatly improved upon some
of the processes that they followed, and the speed with which the fibre is cleared from the tissue has
converted an unprofitable employment into a profitable one. There is, however, still a wide field for
scientific observation and experiment in the manufacture of Phormium fibre, and I propose to-night to
lay before you such few observations and experiments as I have made, in the hope that they may be of
use to others who have not the same means at their disposal for making a microscopical examination of
the fibre, and also with the hope that the facts I shall describe, and the suggestions I may throw out,
will give rise in time to practical applications that will improve the process of manufacture; and to
this end I also hope that others will make their observations and experiments public also.

One of the most important results of a scientific investigation is to show us what we cannot do, and
what, therefore, we should not attempt; and although these results are never so popular as those which
show a new and improved way of doing a thing, they probably, on the whole, save as much money to
those that will be guided by them as is made by the employers of the new processes. With this in
view, I have divided my lecture into two parts, the first of which is more or less scientific, being an
endeavour to give you as clear an idea as I can of the plant, fibre, gum, &c., with which we have to
deal, and to show to you what appears possible for us to do, and what impossible; while the second
part will be more practical, as in it I shall discuss the various operations through which the leaf goes
before it is ready to be exported as fibre. But as I do not wish to weary you by making you listen to
information that you can get from the Interim Report on the Growth, Culture, and Manufacture of
New Zealand Flax (Auckland, 1870), and from other easily available sources, I shall avoid touching
upon any point on which the information seems insufficient, unless I think that I can throw a new
light on it, or that I can correct what appear to me to be errors.

VARIETIES OF PLANT.

To a New Zealand audience I shall hardly be expected to give a description of the flax plant itself,
for we all know it well; and I shall therefore confine myself to a few remarks on the principal varieties,
and on the internal structure of the leaf.

The flax plant is well known to be highly variable, but no attempt has as yet been made to describe
these varieties in a scientific manner, and consequently great confusion exists among the names. Much
of this confusion appears to me to have arisen by supposing that those varieties which were considered
nearly alike by the Maoris, and for which they sometimes used indifferently the same name, are really
allied from the scientific point of view, whereas the Maori system of classification was founded on one