shell is
drawn to the end of the slip, which separates the vegetable covering from
the flaxen filaments. The slip is then trimmed, and the same operation is
performed on the remaining part, which leaves the flax entire. If it be
designed for fishing-lines, or other coarse work, nothing more is done to
it; but if intended for cloth, it is twisted and beaten for a
considerable time in a clear stream of water; and when dried, twisted
into such threads as the work requires. It has been before observed, that
the New Zealand instructors were not very conversant in the mode of
preparing the flax; but on what was learnt from them it was our business
to improve. Instead of working it as soon as gathered, our people found
it work better for being placed in a heap in a close room for five days
or a week, after which it became softer and pleasanter to work. They also
found it easier, and more expeditious, to scrape the vegetable covering
from the fibres, which is done with three strokes of a knife. It is then
twisted, and put into a tub of water, where it remains until the day's
work is finished. The day following it is washed and beaten in a running
stream. When sufficiently beaten it is dried, and needs no other
preparation, until it is hackled and spun into yarn for weaving.

The numbers employed at this work were as follow:

Invalids gathering the flax 3 men
Preparing it 7 women
Beating and washing it 3 who are invalids
Flax-dresser 1
Spinners 2 women
Weaver and assistant 2 men
--
Total 18

by whose weekly labour sixteen yards of canvas of the size of No 7 was
made. It is to be remarked, that the women, and most of the men, could be
employed at no other work; and that the labour of manuring and
cultivating the ground; the loss of other crops; the many processes used
in manufacturing the European hemp, and the accidents to which it is
liable during its growth, are all, by using this flax, avoided, as it
needs no cultivation, and grows in sufficient abundance on all the cliffs
of the island (where nothing else will grow) to give constant employment
to five hundred people. Indeed, should it be thought an object, any
quantity of canvas, rope, or linen, might be made there, provided there
were men and women, weavers, flax-dressers, spinners, and rope-makers,
with the necessary tools; but destitute as our people were of