Evening star., 1916-01-09
Experiments Made
With Plants and Grass.

Experiments Made find a sub
With Plants and Grass. - aood ss
grades. such as the governments perma
nent record are made from linen rags.)
Bamboos and rice straw are being worked
on in southern China: Manchuria. is try
ing to make paper out of the stalks of
the grain sorghums: Egypt has gone back
to pre-biblical precedents and is expert
menting with the plants of the upper Nile
jungles that are rich in papyrus. The
Philippine Islands are attempting to
utilize the waste products of the Manila
hemp industry In paper making, as we'll
las bamboos and island grasses. Esparto
grass is well known source of paper.
The bureau of plant industry is continu-
ally experimenting with new plants and
grasses.
paper plant investigation, under the di-
rection of c. J. Brand. has just discov-
cred an apparently practicable source OF
paper in the zacaton grass of Mexico and
the southwest. Paper made from the
vacation grass is good grade of machine
finish printing paper, the sort generally
used in the better class of popular novels
and textbooks. Zacaton grows freely in
central Mexico, and the southern republic
will probably be making paper from it
long before the United States is forced
to its
AS timber experts point out, the
scarcity of wood pulp must be under
stood only in relative sense. There are
still immense, practically unlimited. guam
titles of raw material left, but the most
desirable sorts. and those close to the
pulp mills, have been SO depleted that
big rise in price has come, aggravated
by the greatly increased demand for
paper. This high price Of wood pulp
gives the grasses chance for use as raw
materials, provided that they offer
cheaper source of paper than does wood.
There is no danger of a wood pulp famine.
though there is strong probability of
higher priced pulp.
The next step in the wood-p in
dustry will be the careful utilization of
wasted prod
Waste Utilization Will ucts. The con-
Be Next Step. wapd tor
pulping has gone up 50 per cent in the
last five years. yet only per cent of
the immense amount of wood used for
pulp today is waste wood from lumber
ing operations. 1t is claimed that waste
from the yellow pine and jack pine for
ests of the south could supply pulp for
that whole section for years. The great
pulp resources of the western forests
are scarcely touched, because they are
too far from the mills and the markets.
Alaska presents vast stretches of vir-
gin timber, much of which is unfit for
anything but paper making. Through
these Alaskan forests flow great rivers.
whose water power could be used to
make pulp on the spot. Here again the
case is one of being too far from the
market, but it is only question OF
high enough price for the product, and
an Alaskan pulp industry would prove
a paying Investment. Thus each rise
in the price of paper throws open the
door to a new source of raw material.
The only war development in the pa
per situation comes in the high price of
bleaching powder. which is used TO
whiten the paper in certain processes
of manufacture. Bleaching powder has
gone up about 400 per cent, in spite of
the fact that most of it is a domestic
product. 1t is said that paper manufac-
turers find ready market in Europe
for their reserve stocks OF TINS ma
terial because it is rich in chlorine.
Chlorine is the basis and active prin-
ciple of the poison gases which are the
newest development in warfare
The United. States imports consldera-
BILE raw material for paper making. but
this trade has not been interfered with
by the war to any extent. The imports
are either in the form of wood or pulp.
The wood comes almost entirely from
Canada, and the pulp from Norway and
Sweden where a combination of small
forest growth and cheap water power
gives chance to manufacture pulp for
export.
The mechanical side of paper making
bids fair to be revolutionized by a modi-
fication of the Fourdrinier machine for
making ews-print paper. This ma
chine, 1t is said. will double the capac-
ity of mill. by turning out news print
paper at the rate of 1000 feet per
minute, where 500 was formerly con-
up to expectations, the new machine
should do something to keep down
prices in spite of expensive pulp.