Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 188, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 August 1914 — Seek Substitute for Wood Pulp [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Seek Substitute for Wood Pulp

LMOST every month of every year brings a report of the discovery in> some distant part of the world of a new paper-making material which is expected to take the place of wood pulp, the supply of which is said to be de-

creasing to an alarming extent In all regions where pulp-producing trees (grow. The latest of these discoveries has been made in Uganda, Africa, and the Imperial institute of London describes in a.report on the subject a> series of experiments made with this new material, which is known as elephant grass. The marshlands of tropical Africa are thickly covered with this grass, which grow*s to a height of frdm six to ten feet and has proved a source of trouble and expense to agriculturists, as it grows rapidly after the shoots above ground have been burned or cut down. A sample of dried mature elephant grass was sent recently from Uganda to the Imperial institute with the object of ascertaining its suitability for the manufacture of paper. The consignment, which weighed 177 ipounds when received and 145 after being atr dried, is said to have yielded after treatment in the laboratories a

ipulp of good color composed of ultimate fibers rather longer than those -of esparto grass and about the same length as those of bamboo pulp. It furnished a fairly good paper which the British experts expect to be able to improve so as to make of this material a suitable and profitable substitute for 'wood pulp. But papermakers have learned, ever since wood pulp was first used in their plants, to be rather skeptical regarding reported discoveries of substitute raw materials. The use of wood pulp for the manufacture of paper is of comparative recent origin, as Its commercial application as a raw material for this purpose dates from about 1869. But long before the first cry of conservation was heard and the first protests made against the devastation of forests men had been engaged In the search for a new raw material. An Important American corporation has for years employed experts In an effort to discover a suitable method for ■making paper pulp of banana stalks. Colorado came to the front some -time ago with the announcement that ptnon wood, which grows In abundance In that state, could be made to supply wood pulp, and John Fitzgerald, supervisor of the National pike forest, was quoted as stating that the (government was planning to erect (mills fdr the manufacture of paper (with this new material. What became of plnon wood pulp? New Mexico soon followed with the (report that bear grass, which grows luxuriantly on the southwest prairies, and with less rain than any other (plant, had been found to be suitable for the manufacture of paper, but that was the last heard about It and another “revolution In the Industry" Called. The scarcity of pulp wood appears, however, to have been greatly exaggerated. The problem may be solved, according to good authorities, without the discovery of substitute material by the preservation of forests In woodproducing states. This Important question has aroused considerable interest In the United States during recent years and decisive steps have been taken by the government for the reforestation of devastated areas and the protection of standing forests. It has been shown that to supply a min having an output of 300 tons of newspaper a week 2,500 acres planted •with spruce and hard woods would be sufficient to give the wood pulp necessary for one year. If the total forest areas was 100,000 acres the timber

available would be sufficient for 40 years supply. During that period the spruce would largely reproduce itself, so that by progressive and careful management of the forest an area of 100,000 acres should afford a perpetual supply to a mill of the capacity given. The problem has also been studied by Gifford Plnchot the forestry expert, and the valuable and elaborate experiments he has carried out on the subject of the growth of spruce are of special Interest. A large area of for* est land was carefully examined as to the nature of timber, its condition and its growth. Mr. Plnchot’s experiments enabled him to figure the exact amount of timber which could be cut from the forest and the number of years which would elapse before an equal quantity of timber could be cut from the same area. This is best illustrated as follows: The case studied was that of a man owning 100,000 acres, yielding an average of seven cord's per acre of spruce ten Inches or more in diameter, and the problem was to ascertain how much the owner could cut annually if he wished to obtain a sustained annual yield, and how soon he could return to the portion cut over the first year and cut the same amount of timber of about the same diameter limit as at first Mr. Plnchot prepared tables showing the total amount of wood with a diameter limit of ten Inches to be 700,000 cords, while the same yield of pulp wood could be obtained after 37 years. The area to be operated annually would be the thirty-seventh part of 100,000, or 2,700 acres, while the annual cut of wood would be the thirty-seventh part of 700,000, or 19,000 cords.

A brief examination of these figures and facts would indicate that there is no apparent danger of either the pulp or the paper industry being deprived of the sources of raw material. The discovery of the art of making paper has been credited to many men of many nationalities. It has, however, been established beyond a doubt that it originated in the Orlebt. The Hindus and the Arabs learned it from the Chinese. The Arabs, invading Spain, brought the art wlth them and little by little Europe learned from Asia and from Africa how paper was made. Bailey Willis of the United States geological survey has gathered in his travels through China some interesting documents showing how paper was made there many centuries ago. One of these documents is a photograph taken by him of a double trip hammer used in many parts of the Celestial empire and which is still being used in some places for making paper from bamboo stalks. The Chinese papermaker’s outfit consisted of several tanks where the bamboo was rotted with water, a trip hammer run by an undershot water wheel, a tray on which the pulp was dried and dyed, resulting at length in strong wrapping paper. In the United States the history of papermaking does not cover more than two hundred years. The first paper mill was probably that established by James M. Willcox, who flourished about 1730. The old mill still stands today in a picturesque and fertile valley of Pennsylvania The interesting story of this pioneer of what is today

one of the leading industries of America is contained in the records of the American Catholic Historical society of Philadelphia prepared by a direct descendant of the original American papermaker. The exact date of the opening of the old Willcox mill is unknown, although it appears that James M. Willcox paid taxes in the town of Concord, Pa, as early as 1725. From its establishment until 1775 little is known of the operar tions of the mill, but at the latter date the first paper for Continental currency was manufactured, and here, too, was made some of the paper used by Benjamin Franklin, who 'was at that time operating a printing office in Philadelphia In 1776, when the war made impossible the importation of foreign paper, congress realized the necessity of keeping in operation the paper mills in the vicinity of Philadelphia, which produced nearly one-half of all the paper made in the colonies, and resolved, “That the papermakers in Pennsylvania be detained from proceeding with their associates to New Jersey." As illustrating the Importance of the manufacture of paper in those days and the limited number of manufacturers engaged in the business, the experience of Nathan Sellers in May, 1776, may be told. Nathan Sellers was an expert in the manufacture of molds used in the making of paper, and while he was serving in the patriot army the papermakers experienced so much difficulty in obtaining proper molds that a petition was addressed to congress praying “that Nathan Sellers be ordered to return from service to make the proper, suitable molds for carrying on the paper manufactory." This petition received favorable action. The Willcox mill made the first bills containing water marks for the state of- Pennsylvania and also manufactured paper for the currency of several other colonies. Years later paper for the currency of the Confederation of States was made at the same establishment, and it was to the old Ivy mills also that the government applied in 1812. It was at the latter period that a distinctive paper with colored silk threads woven through it was made for the government’s use. The first machine for grinding wood into pulp was invented in Germany in 1844, but it was in the United States that sulphite fiber was first used in 1867, resulting in the production, very much more cheaply than previously, of a strong cellulose fiber from spruce wood. i ‘ The American paper trade began its real development about the year 1850. and its progress since that date has never been interrupted. New and wider machines soon replaced the old narrow ones, and the rapid advances in prices of cotton helped to popularize the use of many articles made of paper. The result was an equally marked advance in paper prices. Paper machines used from 1870 to 1885 produced paper at what was then regarded as the tremendous speed of 130 feet a minute on machines of a maximum width of from 86 to 90 inches. Many modem high speed machines are now running night and day on news paper at almost five times that speed.