NEW ZEALAND FLAX IN IRELAND.*
So many of our most useful as well as our most ornamental plants have been introduced from abroad that there is always a presumption in favour of the newcomer. In a recent Kew bulletin, Sir David Prain, the learned and energetic Director of Kew Gardens, states the case temperately but encouragingly for New Zealand flax, Phormium tenax, which is indigenous to New Zealand and Norfolk Island, and which might perhaps be grown on a commercial scale in this country. The fibre of this plant is exported in considerable quantities from New Zealand for the manufacture of binder twine, with which the cornsheaves are bound by the mechanical harvester. Manila hemp and the sisal fibre from Yucatan are largely used by the American -twine factories, which produce immense quantities for the binder, but the need for twine is so great on all the harvestfields where machinery is employed that New Zealand flax is also in demand. If it is worth while to bring this New Zealand fibre from the Pacific to the British manufacturer, it would presumably be advantageous to grow the plant here, if that were possible, inasmuch as the cost of labour in New Zealand is very high and the freight charges on the long voyage are heavy. Sir David Prain's Report tends to show more clearly than before that Phormium tenax can be grown in various parts of the United Kingdom. That great mau of science, Sir Joseph Banks, who accompanied Captain Cook on his first voyage to New Zealand and Australia, was much interested in New Zealand flax and procured some plants for Kew in. 1789. He thought that it would be "a great acquisition to England, where it would probably thrive with very little trouble," and he remarked, not quite accurately, that it seemed to prefer bogs to good soil. The new plant was introduced into Ireland a few years later, and was also grown in Devonshire and Inverness-shire. It has since become tolerably familiar in large country gardens in the West Country, where its great drooping leaves, as if of a giant iris, give an exotic touch. There remains the question whether it can be profitably cultivated here as a regular crop. Sir David Prain answers the question cautiously but hopefully. New Zealand flax has been grown with success at Stranraer in Wigtonshire and-at Arduaine in Argyllshire. In the South-West of Ireland, at Dingle iu County Kerry, Lord Ventry has made extensive plantings, " which have proved that a New Zealand flax industry in that county, and possibly also in County Cork, has every prospect of success."
Lord Ventry says, in a Deport Fainted by Sir David. Prain, • Royal Botanic Garden4, Bete : Bulletin of lifiscellaneous Information. 4, "New Zealand Flax." Unden: H.M. stationery ofeee.
that in May, 1914, he divided some old plants of Phormium tenax and set them in " an old neglected grass field," which he had ploughed up. Last February these plants were from 6i feet to 8 feet high, and were killing the coarse grass that had checked their growth. " I expect them," adds Lord Vontry, " if not cut, to be up to nine feet high by November, and to yield then at least forty tons to the acre, though I have not yet had sufficient experience to enable me to make a very confident estimate." He had last February about thirty-one acres under cultivation, and was preparing to plant thirty or thirtyfive acres more with seedlings. There are many varieties of New Zealand flax. Lord Ventry has experimented chiefly with the Powerscourt variety, called " Huhiroa " in New Zealand, which grows at Dingle up to nine feet high. " The leaves are very erect, the undersides of a light bluish-green, and the edges and keel with a narrow black or dark rod border." The common variety with drooping leaves, the " swamp flax " of New Zealand, yields " a heavy crop " at Dingle. " It grows well on poor wet soil and in exposed situations." The fibre, he adds, is not of the best, but some Irish paper-makers in 1917 made sixteen tons of the leaves into brown wrapping-paper and were satisfied with the quality of the material, apart from its price. Lord Vestry submitted some fibre to experts in 1914, who reported that it was nearly equal to New Zealand fibre, then valued at £27 a ton. The price is much higher to-day. Tho yield of fibre per acre at Dingle has not been ascertained ; Lord Ventry thinks that he will obtain more than a ton per acre, and that he may possibly get two tons. He is convinced, however, that Phormium ten= can be profitably grown by farmers in the South-West of Ireland. " It is impossible for the weather to be too wet for it, and it has two great advantages over other crops ; in the first place, it can be harvested at any time of the year, and, secondly, the work can be done in any sort of weather." The full-grown leaves are cut ; the plant goes on producing more leaves for an indefinite period.
It is to be hoped that Lord Vestry will continue his experiments, which seem to be most promising, and that other farmers in his neighbourhood will follow his example. The demand for fibre is very great ; in the United Kingdom alone twenty thousand tons are used every year. If a substantial quantity could be produced at a profit in these islands, the farmers would benefit. What we should like to know is whether Phormium ten= can be cultivated successfully on poor soils that cannot be used for growing corn, or even roots or potatoes. The Irish Department of Agriculture, in commending the Dingle experiments, reported that the climate " appeared to be exceptionally mild," and that " the soil was on the whole capable, when well treated, of growing good farm crops." It remains to be seen whether New Zealand flax can be grown profitably in any other district in the West of Ireland or the West of Scotland or the Hebrides, where the climate may be less mild than at Dingle. It has also to be shown that the yield of fibre from the Dingle fields, allowing for the cost of cultivation, is worth more than the ordinary crop, say of potatoes, which the fields might be expected to produce. Sir David Prain thinks that Phormium Lenox might be successful " in selected spots in the Hebrides, where conditions would appear to be favourable to its growth." Mr. Wallace, of Stranraer, declares that the plant will grow on swampy wet land and rough hillsides, that it needs moisture, and that it can stand twenty degrees of frost. In the South Island of New Zealand, the climate of which resembles that of Ireland and the Hebrides, Phormium ten= is found near the coast, especially along the larger rivers, but it is far less common in the South Island than in the sub-tropical North Island. We must not assume, then, that it is a very hardy plant, or that it can be easily acclimatized in the United Kingdom. The Kew authorities have lost many plants in the winter, and their experimental planting of New Zealand flax in 1914-15 at Eskdalemuir, just over the Border, was a complete failure. Nevertheless, the plant might thrive in the Hebrides or in Connemara or Donegal, in places where nothing else will grow. When we read of the laborious efforts of the Danes, the Dutch, and the Belgians to reclaim their heaths and bogs and to plant barren hillsides with woods, we cannot but wonder whether something might not be done with the vast areas of waste land in our own country. The claims of sport have, of course, discouraged the rare enthusiast who has been willing to experiment in this direction in the Highlands, and politics and lack of capital have prevented any serious attempts at reclamation in Ireland. If, then, there is a plant of commercial value, like Now Zealand
flax, which will grow on the waste, its possibilities deserve to be examined very carefully. We trust that the Director of Kew will induce other landowners besides Lord gentry to give Phormium tenax a fair trial.
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