244 BIOLOGICAL PROBLEMS 



where in the swamps of the Mississippi and Mis- 

 souri river systems, was used in great quantities 

 for making boards at Quincy in Illinois. Its pro- 

 perties found favourable notice in this country, 1 but, 

 so far as we know, it has never been imported on a 

 commercial scale. 



Another grass, Phragmites commums, the common 

 reed, has latterly been laid under contribution, and is 

 now helping to fill the vacuum in the paper-making 

 world. The large size of this plant and the dense 

 stands in which it grows, taken in connection with 

 long experience in harvesting it, mark out Phragmites 

 for adoption as a raw material, provided, of course, 

 that the fibre has qualities of usefulness. In the 

 Norfolk Broads area, where it is very abundant, this 

 grass is stated already to have doubled in price. 



The days of shortage appear at first sight to be the 

 golden opportunity for the recognition of such merits 

 as our wild indigenous fibre plants possess, and this, 

 no doubt, is true up to the point of proposals for 

 trials being entertained. But the way of establish- 

 ment of a new fibre is long and arduous. It has first 

 to be tried along the lines of current routine, and this 

 gradually modified according to experience until the 

 paper-maker discovers the best use to which it can 

 be put. Even should the fibre survive the preliminary 

 trials, great, if not insuperable, difficulties will be met 

 with in organizing the harvesting and treatment of 

 the crop. In a small way a new sort of agriculture 

 has to be learnt, and labour is practically unprocur- 

 able at a time when the prior claims of food produc- 

 tion, timber, flax, and other war essentials remain 

 unsatisfied. It looks as though mere shortage was 

 an inadequate stimulus to call forth the sustained 



1 Cf. Bowack, Dixon, and Remington in World's Paper Trade 

 23rd April, 1909. 



