W. R. Guilfoyle, Esq., examined.

1283. I think you have made the subject of fibres and fibre plants one of special attention?—I have given it a great deal of attention of late, in fact for some years I have prepared something like 90 kinds of fibre from introduced plants and plants indigenous to this colony, and I have here with me specimens of each fibre named, and I have also a descriptive list of them as well as dried specimens, which I will open now and show you if you wish.

1284. We shall be very pleased if you will do so—[Parcels were produced and their contents exhibited by the witness]?.—These are from plants grown in the Gardens, and have been prepared in a very very simple way indeed, by ordinary maceration, steeping the stems in water, rubbing off the outer covering of the bark and pulverizing them by hand; there are ninety kinds of them. These were done by the ordinary workmen in the Gardens under my direction with the help of an assistant; and I may tell you that not very long ago, just before I sent my collection of fibres to the London Exhibition, I asked an expert to examine them—Mr. Miller, the rope manufacturer here, I suppose one of the greatest rope manufacturers we have in the colonies—and he pronounced some of those fibres to be worth at least £60 a ton.

1285. Which were they?—Especially any of the abutilous and of the hibiscus tribe. Without telling Mr. Miller the names of some of the fibres, I asked him what he considered was the value of them, and he page 48

W. R. Guilfoyle, Esq. continued, 5th April 1886.

said he paid at least £60 a ton for fibre quite inferior to our Australian ones; those were introduced from India

1286. What is this—[pointing to a specimen]?—That is the New Zealand lace bark; it is useful for making twine; we have made some very good twine and rope from this. I have taken the trouble to not only dry the plant, and put a piece of fibre to each specimen, but I have also given a description of each. With the abutilon that I spoke of, those plants which are so easily grown we can produce at least a ton and a half to the acre, worth £60 a ton.

1287. What age were these?—In two years the first crop yields something like 21cwt.; we estimated that, by watching the first growth of the plant (watching its growth all through); and the second year one torn and a half.

1288. And the cost of producing it in this state?—That is a very small matter; to plough an acre of any of the abutilons I do not think it would cost more than £2 a week for three months; that is to include the making of the cuttings, planting, and ploughing the ground.

1289. Cuttings?—They are grown from cuttings very easily.

1290. What kind of soil do you use?—Any ordinary sandy soil or loam.

1291. Have you a specimen of the plant here?—Yes, here is one—"Abutilon venosum (Lemairé) Veined Lantern Flower. Order Malvaceæ, Brazil. A very fine species, of robust habit; yields a very superior fibre. Two crops of 'canes' may be readily obtained in a year in Victoria by proper management. Assuming that each plant gives an annual yield of 100 canes, the weight of clean fibre from which may be estimated at ½., this would give a gross yield of more than 21 cwt. to the acre, the plants set 3 feet apart. The commercial value of this fibre, according to experts, is from £40 to £60 per ton." The plant is well known no doubt to you all; it is found in almost every garden in the colony; nearly all the family of the plant is useful for fibre.

1292. Is the fibre got from the stem?—Yes, from the stem-bark torn off the stem.

1293. The bark or all the way through it?—The bark.

1294. Only the bark?—The bark. You cut the canes as we call them—perhaps it is a wrong name—the branches, strong straight branches, steep them in water for a few hours, and then tear off the bark, dry it in the sun, get rid of the vegetable outer coating, and there is the fibre; just simply by combing it through the machine you get this—[exhibiting a sample]. This is such an extensive collection of fibres that I do not know which way to set to work to mention even some of the more particular ones. Next to these abutilons, which I consider the best of all, come the sterculias, trees which grow here very readily indeed. I should say that in three years we will get fibre from some of the sterculias two yards long, especially from our Victorian one, better known as the bottle-tree.

1295. That is indigenous?—That is indigenous.

1296. How is it propagated?—By seeds.

1297. At what age would the trees bear seed?—Here I suppose a tree will take at least five or six years to bear seed. I have noticed page 49 them up in the mountains. I do not think they could be

W. R. Guilfoyle, Esq. continued, 5th April 1886.

less than five or six years old when they produce.

1298. You speak of fibre being worth £40 to £60 a ton; for what purpose would it be used?—For rope making and anything that is useful for tying material, and it would be useful, I should think, for mixing with cotton, and with other things, and working up into clothes, and so forth. I know that some of the species of these particular plants I am now trying to describe are used in India very largely, and they are spoken of by Dr. Royle.

1299. Are there any of the fibre specimens before us that could be easily grown by an ordinary farmer?—Nearly all of them, in the most simple way. I must tell you that some of the plants which I have before you are found in the woods and forests here; they are apparently coarse grasses; they are not real grasses, but they appear like grasses. You may see sedges and things of the kind growing on the banks of, creeks and in fern gullies. These specimens we have prepared are useful fibres useful for paper-making; they could be very easily grown by divisio of the root; I speak now of grass-like plants; but with regard to shrubs, and I suppose half the fibres before you are from shrubs or trees, they could be very easily grown with very little care and attention. One or two weedings in twelve months is sufficient for them, especially if grown from cuttings, which is very simple. The cuttings may be grown in the open ground, or under glass; they are 18 inches or 2 feet long; if stuck in the ground, you will produce a shoot over a yard in length in one year.

1300. And this would produce something like £40 worth to the acre after it is made into fibre?—Yes. The first year might not and possibly would not be as profitable as the second and third years. I believe the more the plant is cut down the stranger and larger the shoots, and therefore the more fibre ever year. I think that you could not get the abutilons much stronger than they would be after the fourth year.

1301. I suppose the shoots would be cut and put under water?—The shoots would be cut, taken to a stream or waterhole at once, or even a butt, or anything that they could be steeped in, and then, just as the sugar-cane is treated in Queensland, allow the plate to shoot up again from the stem.

1302. Having steeped the stems and shoots with leaves on and everything?—Yes, the sooner they are in the water the better.

1303. You squeeze them?—No, simply leave them in the water tied in bundles, just as New Zealanders prepare flax; steep the stems in water thirteen or fourteen days; some of them require steeping longer than others; and I may say that some of the flbres upon the table require boiling; but some would strip after merely steeping, just as you strip the bark from a willow.

1304. Would you strip the bark from each stem separately?—Yes, that is the only way.

1305. Is not that a very large amount of labor—No, it is a labour for women and children.

1307. It strips off very easily?—It strips off very easily, you just push the nails of the finger and thumb into it, and sometimes the whole bark strips off at once as you would strip the bark from a willow.

1808. Can any of the indigenous grasses be used?—Yes, a great many of them would be useful for paper-makers. We have prepared thirty or forty kinds of paper in my laboratory from Australian grasses and other plants—rough paper, of course. I did not bring the specimens to-day, because I thought these fibres were quite enough to deal with in one day.

1309. What would this fibre be worth prepared in large quantities?—It is very hard to say. I sent them to Mr. Ramsden, of the paper mills, but I never got an estimate what the value would be. He pronounced some of my paper to be very fair; but I had only very crude appliances with which to carry out my experiments. But with regard to fibres, I can speak positively, because we grew most of them in the Gardens, prepared and tested them.

1310. You spoke of one of the first as being the most profitable to grow?—In speaking of one plant I speak of a family of plants. We have fifteen or sixteen species of the abutilon; these and the sterculias—a very closely allied family—seem to be the most profitable and the most easily prepared.

1311. It is the annual shoot that you prepared?—Yes, the annual shoot; but first of all, in commencing the production, it would be necessary to have a special plantation of those things from which a stock could be obtained, so that one would have to begin two years before, at least, in getting the plantation ready. One must have a stock to start with.

1312. You would have the cutting, I suppose, a foot long?—Each cutting should be be foot long, I think. Of course, a great deal would depend upon the sort of soil you had to deal with, because, if it were a very dry soil, the deeper the cutting the better; if in a moist soil, a shorter cutting would do.

1313. Do they very readily strike?—Very readily. A cutting abutilon or hibiscus will strike if put in in the month of May, outdoors in about five or six weeks or two months at most. It may be necessary sometimes to strike cuttings in frames.

1314. And would 90 or 95 per cent, grow?—You may safely reckou upon that; they are very easily struck.

1315. Is this plant cultivated for the fibre in any part of the world!—One species or two of the hibiscus and abutilon have been cultivated in America of late years, and I really think that some hints were go from the report of the first specimens I cultivated six or seven years ago. I have read one or two reports. The Washington reportsgive me credit for introducing them. I do not think that the abutitions were page 51 ever cultivated in India before, but the sterculias, some

W. R. Guilfoyle, Esq. continued, 5th April 1886.

Indian species, were cultivated before that in India.

1316. The estimate of value has been from an expert you have spoken to here; do you know for certain that this would be worth from £50 to £60 a ton?—Yes; that is if I can depend upon what the expert has told me, and I think his name is known to you all, Mr. Miller, the rope manufacturer here; and without telling him that these fibres were Australian, nor even prepared in my laboratory, I asked him the value of the fibres. He wanted to know where I got them, and I said, "No, nothing, till you tell me what you consider to be the value of the fibre here." He said, "I may tell you this, that I paid £60 a ton for fibre not a bit better than that." "Now, will you be good enough to tell me what quantity of fibre you can produce here upon an acre of land?" The thing I have thought seriously of since is, that it would not be a bad idea to form a company and grow these plants upon an experimental farm. Indeed, I would willingly be one of a company, as I have faith that it would be a success. Why, even if we only got £30 a ton for those fibres so easily grown in poor, sandy soils, it would be profitable enough.

1317. Would it grow better in good soils?—Much better; there would be larger canes, and more moisture in the plant, and the preparation of it would be easier in every respect. It is always the case with fibre plants.

1318. Do you think with irrigation it would be better grown?—Decidedly.

1319. Do you think it would do without irrigation?—Yes, but the yield would not be so much. With irrigation I consider you would get two-thirds more of a crop.

1320. Would it grow well in heathy country?—Yes, if well drained; drainage is a necessity to the cultivation of almost everything except bog plants; some of those are bog plants, and some of these fibre plants grow upon the hills. One species is a zerotus, another a cyperus; those will grow upon the hills, and give a very silky fibre; I have them here amongst these samples. The dracænas too are valuable; here is one very valuable, and I daresay it will be interesting to Mr. Moore—a plaut of the same order, Doryanthes excelsior, the spear lily of New South Wales and Queensland; both species produce very fine fibre indeed.

1321. How is that propagated?—By division of the root.

1322. It is something like the New Zealand flax, is it not?—It is not at all unlike the New Zealand flax, and will grow upon dry hills.

1323. What quantity would you get out of an acre, do you think?—The way we had to go to work in making an estimate was very difficult: we had to count the number of leaves upon the plant; when we had to be guided only by the growth of one plant, it is very difficult to estimate, but I think we reckoned it at about 16 cwt. to the acre; not being so fine a fibre as some of the others I have brought before you, I think it would be quite equal to the Pita hemp of America, made from the agave; indeed we twisted it and tested it by putting weights upon it, page 52

W. R. Guilfoyle, Esq. continued, 5th April 1886.

and found it quite strong. It was my intention to have asked a few experts to test this fibre before you, so that you could hear exactly their opinion, and particularly Mr. Miller; in fact, he has not had a chance of seeing one half of those fibres.

1324. Would it be profitable to cultivate this fibre as against the fibre, say, of New Zealand flax, that grows so plentifully in New Zealand?—We all know that New Zealand flax is a very valuable fibre, but sometimes there is a great difficulty to get rid of the gum that exists in such quantities in it, and I read lately a paragraph somewhere that a chemist had found out some acid by which he could get rid of this hard substance. We have prepared samples of fibre of that, and I know from experience that we had to boil it sometimes twenty-four hours before we could tear it to pieces. The ordinary cold water steeping is not good enough to prepare New Zealand flax. It does very well for the New Zealanders, who simply make a rough rope of it.

1325. Would boiling take it out?—Boiling does not take it all out.

1326. Would that injure the fibre at all?—That is one particular point; sometimes you have to boil it so much that you do injure the fibre, but we have fibres quite equal to the flax that will grow far more readily. You could not get a crop from New Zealand flax in two years, or even three, in this climate; you might in four years. You see the great advantage is to have something that would grow quickly and turn out a profit soon.

1327. Have you any English flax here in this collection?—No, I rather went in more for plants near us. I have tried our Australian linum. We have produced a very pretty and silky flax from that. It is a common weed.

1328. Does it bear a seed?—Yes, very much like the English linum usitatissimum, its flower is blue. It is very pretty, and we originally grew it for a garden flower. The dracamas grow in almost every garden here, called by some people palm lilies. They belong to the lily tribe. Here is a specimen of it; there are many species. We find these grow very readily here, and those would be quite equal to jute in strength and quite as easily worked. Speaking of fibres, we tried jute the first year I came here. I tried it, aud I found that it made a wonderfully quick growth. I found jute five feet high in four months. Of course it is a summer crop; the frost is injurious to it. When I was up in Carpentaria, some three years ago, I noticed in my rambles across from Cooktown—I went that way with some black trackers, and noticed nine or ten species of jute between Cooktown and the Dividing Range—the Indian jute.

1329. They must be indigenous to the continent?—Yes.

1330. What is the seed like?—It is a little four-valved, or sometimes five-valved, pod; it belongs to a very interesting family.

1331. Do you know the commercial value of jute fibre per ton?—No, I do not know, but Mr. Miller, who I hope will attend one of our meetings here, will be able to settle that matter.

1333. Is jute grown largely in India?—Yes.

1334. How is it grown there?—The seed is sown broadcast. I believe they prepare the soil very well. They plough it, and harrow it, and brush harrow it, and sow broadcast. It is like wheat, when you sow it thick it runs up to stems, often five feet high.

1335. Do you know how it is prepared?—What I have read of it is that they prepare it by simply tying it up in bundles, leaving it in water so many hours, taking it out and preparing it by machinery. Of course cultivators find a very rapid way of preparing fibres when they make up their minds to grow them as crops; I should very much like to see fibre-growing tried here, and I think if the Government are satisfied with what I tell them about these fibres, they should offer a reward for the first few tons of the best kinds now produced.

1336. The consumption of jute fibre is enormous, of course?—Yes, I believe it is; but they are finding out so many other fibres now that are quite as good as jute.

1337. Are not all the sacks, and gunny bags, and covers, made from jute?—I do uot think they are all made from pure jute; I think a great many other fibres are mixed with them, for I have torn many bags to pieces myself, and examined pieces under the microscope, and I find they differ very much indeed, just as much as the bast of the mallow differs from one of the fine fibres of the abutilons.

1338. The price of manufactured jute in bags is very low indeed, and any fibre produced here would have to compete with it, would it not?—I think some of our Victorian grown fibres would run jute out of the market altogether, and that I believe is the opinion of Mr. Miller. I have written a very short paper upon fibres that would not take many minutes to read, and would throw much light upon the subject, I think. I have also written a paper upon oil-producing plants.

1339. From the description of some of those plants, it seems to me that they would do admirably upon the Murray Flats?—I am sure they would do upon the Murray Flats; I have an eye upon the Gippsland Flats, where the hop grows so splendidly, and I think most of the fibres would do there, and all through Gippsland, both upon the hills and upon the river banks.

1340. Of course the Murray climate is very different from the Gippsland climate?—It is; but I think the abutilons, hibiscus, mallow, and cordylines or dracænas seem to adapt themselves to any climate. The cordylines are nearly all natives of New Zealand, from which fibre is prepared, and they do just as well here.

That alludes to this descriptive list which I have here.

1342. Perhaps you would place at the disposal of the Commission the list you have referred to?—I shall be most happy; but I intended, after reading this paper, I would detach these slips and pin them together for publication, if necessary. They have the botanical and common names and description of plants, how grown, what soil, and how the fibre can be prepared—all particulars about them. This has been a labour of love to me. For the past thirteen years in Victoria I have paid a good deal of attention to these things. This is the result, and I hope to hear, after the London Exhibition is over, that all who are interested in fibre plants will approve of such a collection.

1343. You spoke about some flax that you have here, a native flax?—Yes.

1345. Do you know the Ordinary wild flax which grows so plentifully in most parts of the colony; it bears a blue flower?—Yes, I know it. There are three species of flax indigenous to this country; two of the species, I think—I am not quite sure—very likely Mr. Moore can set me right upon that point, but I am not sure whether the white one is not found in New South Wales, but the blue one I have seen I never thought much of as a fibre plant for quantity, The fibre however is silky.

1346. The blue flower has a great deal of seed?—Yes, it produces a great deal of seed.

1347. You said you had another paper upon other plants?—Yes, but it is a very lengthy paper; I shall be happy to read it if you iike. I may tell you what it treats of—some seven or eight kinds of oil-producing plants, the olive and sun flower, the sesame, ground almond, the castor oil plant, and others.

1348. Perhaps it would be rather too much to expect from you to read that to-day, but as it is so important a matter, the Commission would be very glad to get the information. You can supply us with it upon another occasion?—Very well.

1349. We have some specimens of olives grown up at the Dookie fann, and you see the state of growth they are in now?—Yes.

1350. The names are all carefully recorded in the farm journal, but unfortunately they were planted without any labels, consequently we do not know which the name refers to, and the question I want to ask is what would be the best means of getting these names attached to the proper plants?—The best plan, as far as our collection is concerned, would lie to collect your specimens and send them as fresh as possible to the gardens during the time that olives are bearing. We have something like thirty correctly-named species. Possibly this is a seedling; I do not recognise that as a named species.

1351. It is specially imported?—Their name is legion; you know, like apple trees, they are always rearing new varieties; we may not be able to name it. The most like it is one we got from Sir Samuel Davenport; it is now, I believe, fruiting in the gardens. I may be allowed perhaps to take a portion of this specimen and compare it; but I must say what we saw the other day at Sandhurst were some splendid olive trees there. The trees did not seem to be more than six or seven years old, and the fruits were very large. It would take five of these fruits to make one of those.

1352. Have you seen the trees at Dookie?—No, I have not been to Dookie. I promised myself to go there. Those specimens at Sandhurst were very prolific.

1353. Do you remember the kinds imported by the Government, did they pass through your bauds when going to Dookie farm?—I do not think they did. I found in the garden about ten or twelve species when I went there, and I increased that by something like twenty others or more. I got a number from Sir Samuel Davenport, and a number from Mr. E. B. Heine, who was very fond of cultivating the olive, and I page 57 imported some very fine kinds myself from Spain; and, in

W. R. Guilfoyle, Esq. continued, 5th April 1886.

laying out the new portion of the Gardens I intend to make a plantation of olives and to move some from the bank of the lake. It is far more easy to remove an olive tree than many imagine. You can transplant them at almost, any age. I have removed them, at any rate, at fifteen years old.

1354. Of the fibre plants which are so numerous I am not quite clear as to the sort that you would recommend as being the most suitable to commence with by a selector to cultivate, the one, two, or three kinds which you would specially select, and the districts in which you think they might be tested in the first instance?—I would recommend abutilons. I lay more stress upon them than any of the others because of their silky and easily worked fibre. There are seven or eight species of them. I think here upon the flats, or in places where we could irrigate upon the sides of hills, they would do just as well. And the same remark applies to some of the trees. Some of these fibre plants would grow without any trouble, such as those Queensland Doryanthese, for instance, upon swamps or bogs of no use for any other cultivation. I think they would do well there, but I am sure most of them can be made to grow where irrigation cannot be got, and yield a plentiful crop, an abundant and paying crop.

1355. You think irrigation is very desirable to increase the producing power of fibre?—Of anything, but fibres in particular. I think when Mr. Miller is asked as an expert his opinion of the value of these fibres, and what he could use them for, then would be the time, perhaps, to-mention the particular plants and their culture; but I know that these things would succeed.