PROGRESS REPORT OF THE FLAX COMMISSIONERS. 17

Agent in London, John Morrison, Esq., who is also instructed to defray all fees and charges, the
amount of which the Commissioners have left to your discretion.
I beg to enclose you the following documents :—
"Report of the Flax Commissioners on the means employed in the preparation of New
Zealand Flax."
"Report of the Joint Committee on Colonial Industries."
"A Lecture on the Manufacture of New Zealand Flax, by Captain Hutton, F.G.S."
"Report from the New Zealand Commissioners relative to the Manufacture of New Zealand
Flax."
"Progress Report of Flax Commission, 1870."
Some of these will be, and others may be, required by the person selected to conduct the
examination, in order that he may understand the points on which information is chiefly wanted, and
his attention should be specially directed to those passages which I have marked, and also to those
subjects which I have indicated in the memorandum accompanying these papers.
It would be hardly possible for me to exaggerate the importance to New Zealand of a satisfactory
solution of the difficulties which now prevent the full development of this Colonial industry.
Extensive fields of the raw material exist; we know that it contains a fibre of great beauty, strength,
and value; abundance of coal and water power favour the manufacturer; very large sums of money
have been embarked in the construction of mills and machinery, and hundreds of settlers have devoted
their entire energies and attention to the subject; and yet, hitherto, from want of sufficiently
authoritative guidance, they have failed to derive those benefits which might reasonably have been
expected. Under these circumstances, the Commissioners feel that they need offer no apology for
applying to you for aid and co-operation.

I am, &c.,

JAMES HECTOR,
Chairman.

J. D. Hooker, Esq., C.B., M.D., F.R.S.

MEMORANDUM, with Printed Papers, forwarded to Dr. HOOKER.

(No. 38.)

THE accompanying printed papers contain almost everything that is known relative to the
Phormium tenax, and the various opinions which are held as to the best means for preparing it's
fibre are sufficiently stated to guide any one taking up the inquiry afresh.

There is no doubt of the high value of the fibre as prepared by the Natives, and if a mechanical
apparatus were contrived, by which their method of preparing the fibre could be inexpensively per-
formed, the chief difficulty would be removed.

The objection to the Native method is its expensiveness, due to great amount of manual labour
required, and the loss of raw material.

The essential feature of the method is—that portions of the fibrous bundles are torn from the
parenchyma in which they are imbedded, together with the adherent gummy cuticle that covers the
inner surface of the blade of the leaf. The Natives in some cases remove this cuticle by steeping, in
other cases they merely let it dry, and then brush it off mechanically. The result of both methods of
treatment on the fibre is the same—leaving it in a white lustrous condition, possessed of great
strength and lasting properties.

The ultimate fibres in good Native-dressed flax are free and comparatively non-adherent laterally,
which is the chief distinction between it and fibre dressed by machines that have been invented by
Europeans, in which the ultimate fibres are firmly bound together in bundles which break with a short
cross fracture.

The reason for this difference is not yet determined, and is in fact the chief point to which it is
desirable that the attention of the chemist and microscopist should be directed.

Captain Hutton, in his lecture (p. 8), states that a peculiar cement exists which binds together
the ultimate fibres, and argues for the necessity of preparing the fibre by a method that will not injure
this cement. Against this view it is urged that the hand-dressed fibre of the Natives which is extracted
without chemicals, or even washing, is quite free from this cement, as in it the lateral adhesion of the
ultimate fibres is at the minimum, while the longitudinal adhesion of the fisculi is at the maximum.

It is of course to be taken into account that the Natives use only a small proportion of the fibre
in the leaf, but the quantity they can extract is greatly increased by the cultivation of the plant and
judicious selection of the leaves.

The comparative examination, therefore, of the fibrous bundles which the Natives reject, or in other
words those on the back of the leaf, with the fibre they take, is of great importance to the inquiry.
The investigations required may be subdivided under the following heads :—

1. Comparative microscopic analysis of the structure of different parts of the fresh leaf:—
   a. Butt ; b. blade ; c. tip ; d. glossy surface ; e. bloom surface ; in each case showing the
   relative proportions and arrangement of the various tissues in the various parts.
2. Prepared fibres—microscopic comparison of the varieties of Phormium fibre, Manila
   hemp, Irish flax, Russian flax,—showing relative form and dimensions of the ultimate fibre,
   and the mode in which they are in contact laterally.
3. Chemical analysis of the proximate constituents of the different parts of the Phormium
   leaf, for the purpose of determining the chemical reaction of the different gummy and
   extractive matter, and the relative proportion in which these exist in the butt and blade
   of the leaves. A most desirable point to determine chemically is whether any change
   analogous to ripening takes place in the juice of the leaf which would indicate the best
   period for cutting it.
4. The tables of the relative strength of fibres given in books being defective, it is
   desirable that a series of experiments should be undertaken to determine the breaking