8o 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Straw has long been employed as a paper material, but it is often 

 scarce and dear. It is even found profitable to buy up the bedding- 

 litter from the metropolitan stables, and, after washing and disinfect- 

 ing it, to sell it to the paper-mills. 



Until a very recent period, the waste-paper of the Government 

 offices of London was the perquisite of the messengers. But when it 

 was found that the aggregate sales of this waste-paper reached the 

 sum of 10,000 to 15,000 a year, it was thought time to look into 

 this, and it was then handed over to the Stationery-office, and, in the 

 last financial year, the sale of waste-paper reached 11,771. The 

 United States Treasury sells yearly more than 600 tons of paper-pulp, 

 resulting from the destruction by maceration of Government secu- 

 rities, bank-notes, etc. 



In one large printing and publishing establishment in London, the 

 waste-paper, in shavings and imperfect impressions, exceeds seventy- 

 five tons a year. Even the newspaper-offices now economize and use 

 up their spoiled impressions, or overplus papers, for printing their 

 posters on. 



It is only since 1860 that the extraction of the oil from cotton-seed 

 has been carried on on a commercial scale ; before that date vast 

 quantities of the seed were allowed to accumulate and to rot on the 

 cotton-plantations. It is an industrial fact of considerable interest 

 and significance, that at the present time the seed is often more val- 

 uable to the planters for its oil and oil-cake than the cotton-fiber, for 

 of the latter it contains only about one quarter of its weight. 



In the process of refining, the residue of the crude oil is distilled, 

 and, with care, produces a hard grease or stearine, which commands, 

 when of good color, within 3s. or 4s. per hundred- weight the price 

 of Petersburg tallow. The by-product is used for making artificial 

 butter. Even the foots, or tarry residue, is useful as a paint ingre- 

 dient. 



It would be difficult to define the limits to which the indirect con- 

 sumption of Indian corn extends. Every pound of American pork 

 eaten, the laundry and food starches used, the large production of 

 alcohol (that of whisky in the States is 67,000,000 gallons), the var- 

 nishes used by the cabinet-maker, the perfumery of the toilet-table, 

 the different kinds of illuminating fluids, all indicate the universality 

 of the employment of maize. 



It was in 1867 that a new use was found for maize, by convert- 

 ing it into glucose. The report of the New York Chamber of Com- 

 merce states that the production of this sugar is now not less than 

 1,000 tons a day for the whole United States. 



In America, they are also endeavoring to utilize the immense quan- 

 tities of pulp remaining from the corn after the extraction of the 

 starch. This pulp, which is at present a waste product, consists 

 wholly of cellulose or woody fiber, and would, it is considered, be an 



