Evening star., 1928-12-25
BACKGROUND OF EVENTS
BY PAUL y. COLLINS.

the American of his process for making
cornstalk paper and Mr.. Gardner be-
came engrossed with its Importance.
| The employer of Gardner, the New
York financier w. julie Day, later
shared his recognition of the impor-
tance of the process, and ever since the
Spring of 1927 that Austrian chemist
has been maturing his processes In a
New Jersey and, later. an Illinois lab
oratory Even since coming to America
with his experiments it has taken
$750000 to perfect the methods and
equip the first mill. Other factories are
to be built Immediately in the various
parts of the country.
AS was the case in the Minnesota
experiments with wheat straw for pa
per, one of the most formidable STUN
bling blocks was how to get enough of
the raw material to the factory, with
economy Of handling. This part Of the
work was intrusted with Harvey j.
| Sconce of Danville, who was a practical
| corn raiser, farming on large scale.
| The stalks may be cut by the farm
ers, either by binder, corn sled or corr
knife, and set up in shocks several
times as large as ordinary shocks.
| Later. the stalks are gathered with
| special leaders and shredded and baled
on the individual farms, by the corn
! paper company, which owns and op-
crates all the machinery used for that
purpose. The paper-making process.
therefore, begins on the farms, directly
| by the company, but with the help of
| the farmers, who receive going wages
| for their labor. The farmer gets moth
ing for the stalks, beyond his own
wages while the fodder is being shredded
and baled, but he saves his former ex-
penSe in getting rid of the waste
nuisance, and his wages come at a sea-
son when otherwise he would be idle
late Fall and Winter.
AS the business develops in volume,
it is probable that the growers will be
able to dictate a market price for their
raw material. but, today, it has no
| commercial value except what is given
1t by the paper mill, hence the mill
does not pay for it.
Right now, the sugar planters Of
Honolulu are undertaking to utilize the
hhrouS sugar cane stalks in the same
way, but whether they are informed
as to this Dorner system, the report
| does not state.
The history of paper-making is it.
self rather short, so far as Europe and
-NAiNAASth dAC SOilCCIucu, dILHOuRn DaDCT
mad been made in China and Japan
for many centuries before the secret
was. stolen in raid by Moors ard
Arabs, and the first paper mill was
oullt IN Bagdad in 795 AID. It re.
NAMED an Eastern monopoly for 90
years more. Paper was not made In
England until 1695-two generations
after the Pilgrims landed In New Eng
land. The first paper mill was built
In America near Philadelphia in 1890.
up to the beginning of the nineteenth
century all paper made anywhere
was a hand product. The first paper
making machinery was invented in 1903
by French printer. Nicilas Robert. as
sisted by Bryan Donkin and certain
capitalists whom they interested. John
Dickinson in England invented a cylin-
der machine in 1909, and the first
drying cylinders were added in 1921.
1t was not until about 1880 that the
use OF wood pulp for print paper was
SUBSTITUTED Tor rags. and now, within
less than half a century, the forest
depletion makes it imperative to And
substitute for the spruce pulp. The
statistics of the acreage of virgin for
est required to produce enough paper
Tor a single issue of a great daily is
appalling.
according to experts, the process of
cornstalk paper manufacture is cheaper
than that OF wood pulp paper. for il
goes from the raw stalk into pauer in
third OF the time required for wood:
1t therefore requires less wages. less
machinery and less chemicals. Corn. ;
stalks require only hours cooking. .
as against IA hours for the wood. It /
taxes 10000 gallons of water for one .
ton OF corn paper. as contraSted with
100000 gallons for wood pulp paper.
per ton. The raw material is grown
within the same distance year after i
year around the mill, while forests be-
come more and more distant with each
years nsumption-thousand of square
miles OF forest devastated annually.
The use of the cornstalks for paper
will carry them off the farm, which
will lose their fertilizing value A far
mer who burned his stalks instead Of
distributing them for manure was
never an approved agriculturist, though /.
that was the too general practice. Now
Will come the new problem of replacing
soil fertility stolen by the paper mill.
Also, there may be new breeds of corn
developed for the stalk fiber, Just as
there Is flax grown in the Northwest
Tor its seed alone, and another variaty
In Ireland for its linen fiber. The,
same flax plant does not successfully
produce both seed and fiber, nor win
the same corn.