The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1869-10-14
Manufacture ofPaper from Cotton Stalks.

Ihe value or the COTTON planC IL Suuci-
emily appreciated mall parts of the world,
and especially in our own section of IT..
1t is destined, however, to rise still high
err in public favor, for it is now ascertain
ed that the stalks, after the crop has all
been. gathered, are available for paper
making. We owe this discovery to the
inventive powers and research of our
townsman, Dr. J.. B. Read, to whom
patent has just been issued for this new
manufacture. Okra paper, also patented
by this gentleman, is destined to an i'm.
portant place among American manufac-
lures, but we predict still higher place
for his last discovery. We examined last
Winter samples of Okra paper made at
the Chickasabogue Mill, near Mobile, and
concluded at once that Okra paper was
much too good for ordinary printing pur-
poses. 1t was like paper made from linen
rags, and will find its proper place for
book printing and fine stationery.
Cotton stalk paper,w learn, will have
more the characteristics of paper made
from common cotton rags. - =
Cotton apd Okra belong to the same
botanical order, and the stalks having
very little silex in their composition, both
will make soft and flexible paper.
Newspaperdom will find at last, in cot
ton stalk paper, what has 80 long been
desired, assupply of cheaper and better
paper, as the raw material is almost with
out limit, and has hitherto been o waste
product.
In the name of the press, therefore, we
hail the new invention. The paper mills
of the middle and Northern States must
give immediate attention to securing
Okra, which they can grow within sight
of their mills, if they hope to compete
successfully with the South in the manu-
facture of paper.
The whole of the cotton stalk, without
the necessity of any separation of parts,
is available for paper making, and no Gu
ring is necessary, save what it receives in
the field. Neither are there required any
expensive process or changes in machin-
cry. 1t is evident that rags cannot COM
pete successfully with waste field crops,
like okra or cotton stalks: neither has
Esparto broom any chance for successful
rivalry, on this side of the Atlantic, at
least. .- 500
This new manufacture is. in our opin;
ion, destined to rank in Importance and
value, if properly pushed forward, with
the sewing machine and lndla-rnbber
patents, which are known to be worth at
least a million each. DR.. Read is desir
GUS of disposing of onehalf interest in
this invention, to stock company of en-.
ergcLic men,, who may cooperate with
him in the development of the new en-
terprise-Tuscatoosa Observer.
| The DIGNITY OF THE EDITOR If il
be. true that the writer's Of history fill in
part The space of public benefactors, then
ought some respectable tribute to be paid
to the corps editorial for they, more
than any othermen. constitute the daily
| laborers who furnish the incidents in de-
tail, of which all permanent history is
made.
They sketch the first drafts give the
first outlines of all facts-garner them
the public historian. Indeed, they are
in many cases the most Industrious, as
we'll as tho boldest pioneers of the histo-
ric world. They not only rack and ex-
haust their brain TO invent thought, to
give it an attractive form-that it may be
palatable to the public, but they watch
the universal footsteps of the whole
world, of their fellow-men, that they may
give the nows of the day. make such re-
cord of all public facts as will. secure
power to the press, and fnrnishthem with
the means to keep it going.
In academies and colleges, boys and
men learn the sciences and become ac.
quainted with language and letters, but
in printing Office the very intellect is
quickened-the wits are sharpened, and
the fires of genius find genial hearth
stone where their every blaze may be
made practical and appropriate, ornarnen-
tai and beautiful.
1t is not at all marvellous that even
the "devils' of printing offices often grow
to be our best and wisest philosophers.
They, in fact, cannot we'll he lp it, for the
richest food of a practical intellectually
is always strewn around them, and the
very types they handle daily, though
bodily only mere dull lead, have in and
about them Thousand times more mas
ter power vf intelligence and tuition
than whole Faculty of mere sheepskin
professors. Hence the chair editorial is
to be likened to some high and grand OBJ
servatory where intellect realizes life's
greatest advantages, but where fools die
early, and true genius often finds it's ap-
propriate destiny.
Even in my boyhood I learned to have
q wonderful reverence for an editor As
passed TO school often looked in on
one of them, and thought, as | saw him
surrounded by great hecatombs of nows-
papers, that he had the. best chance to
"know it all" of any man l knew Of
| thonuht he WAS q fee simnla owner nf 81