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Back Issues: The forgotten history of flax

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Description: Local historians weekly "Back Issues" article in the Manawatū Standard. The role and history of flax in Manawatū and Horowhenua, from pre-European times to the mid- twentieth century. Harakeke, or New Zealand Flax, was named Phormium tenax by botonists aboard Captain Cook's voyage in 1772. Flax was pivotal to traditional Māori life., health and commerce. As European immigrants settled in Aotearoa, flax became mostly a transitional industry, milled as part of swamp clearance for farmland. In the Manawatū and Horowhenua, the industry was more permanent. The last flax mill in the country was New Zealand Woolpack and Textiles Ltd, Foxton. It closed in 1973.