. Cyclopedia of farm crops. Farm produce; Agriculture. FIBER PLANTS FIBER PLANTS 289 showing the annual imports and increasing values during the past ten years : Average Year Quantity Value import price per tnu Tons 1896 52,130 $3,412,760 $65 47 1897 63,266 3,834,732 60 61 1898 69,322 5,169,900 74 58 1899 71,898 9,211,377 128 12 1900 76,922 11,782,263 153 17 1901 70,076 7,972,564 113 77 1902 89,583 11,961,213 133 52 1903 87,025 13,289,444 152 71 1904 109,214 15,935,555 145 91 1905 100,301 15,250,859 152 05 Phormium or New Zealand hemp. (Fig. 401). The fiber known commercially as New Zealand he
. Cyclopedia of farm crops. Farm produce; Agriculture. FIBER PLANTS FIBER PLANTS 289 showing the annual imports and increasing values during the past ten years : Average Year Quantity Value import price per tnu Tons 1896 52,130 $3,412,760 $65 47 1897 63,266 3,834,732 60 61 1898 69,322 5,169,900 74 58 1899 71,898 9,211,377 128 12 1900 76,922 11,782,263 153 17 1901 70,076 7,972,564 113 77 1902 89,583 11,961,213 133 52 1903 87,025 13,289,444 152 71 1904 109,214 15,935,555 145 91 1905 100,301 15,250,859 152 05 Phormium or New Zealand hemp. (Fig. 401). The fiber known commercially as New Zealand hemp and New Zealand flax is obtained from the leaves of the Phormium hemp plant, Phormium tenax, Forst., belonging to the Liliaeece or Lily family. Neither the plant nor the fiber has any resemblance to hemp or flax. The plant is similar in habit to the common blue flag or iris, but much larger. Its many tHmPM â. Fig. 401. New Zealand hemp {Phormium tenax). coarse, grass-like leaves, one-half to one and one- fourth inches wide and three to twelve feet long, grow in dense clumps from perennial roots. A flower-stalk hearing lily-like flowers grows at length from the center of the leaf-cluster. The old roots in the middle become weaker and die, and the outer plants in turn become new centers of growth. Many different varieties are recognized, B19 varying in length and width of leaves, and in habit as well as habitat. The plant is native in New Zealand, and is dis- tributed in many parts of Australasia. It has been introduced as an ornamental in California and the southern states, and also in Europe, even as far north as Ireland and Scotland. It is cultivated for fiber-production on a commercial scale in New Zea- land, and to a small extent in southern Europe. It is the only important hard-fiber plant of the tem- perate zones. In New Zealand it grows between latitudes 35° and °, where it is subject to frost and snow, but it will not endure the more severe winters of our no
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