Once stripped, flax fibre was hung out to dry and bleach for a couple of weeks. At Miranui, the country's largest flax mill, near Foxton, this drying area covered 100 hectares. Dried fibre was scutched—mechanically beaten with wooden flails to polish the fibres—then baled for export, as here at Lake Ohia in Northland, 1915. Most flax fibre found its way into ropes.