i;. i>. I. — osG. 



CROP PLANTS FOR PAPER MAKING." 



INTRODUCTION. 



Continued advances in the prices of spruce and poplar wood and 

 the rapid diminution of visible supplies have drawn marked atten- 

 tion to the j)roblem of finding new sources of raw material for paper 

 making. Not only is the price rising with the dimini.shing supply, 

 but the consumption of both pulp and paper products is rapidly 

 increasing. The statistics of the Bureau of the Census indicate that 

 an increase of at least 5 per cent each year may be expected in the 

 quantity of wood used, although the increase from 1899 to 1904 was 

 more than 53 per cent— from 1.98G.310 to 3,043,459 cords. In 1909, 

 4,002,000 cords were used. While old uses of pulped fiber are being 

 extended and important new ones are being discovered, many promis- 

 ing methods of utilizing pulp and paper remain wholly unexploited. 

 These will claim large additional quantities of raw material in their 

 development. 



The inadequacy of the supply of materials now in use to meet these 

 requirements is an accepted fact. Two sources of new material offer 

 themselves: The first, and, so far as the immediate future is con- 

 cerned, perhaps the more promising, is the large number of coniferous 

 and broad-leaved trees that hitherto for various reasons have not 

 been used. These are under investigation by the Forest Products 



1 The (greater part of the paper here presented was published in the Yearbook of the 

 Department of Agriculture for 1910, pages 329 to 340. In order to secure a practical 

 test of some of the papers that have been produced under Mr. Brand's supervision in the 

 experiments of the Bureau ot Plant Industry, it is thought advisable to issue a circular 

 printed on papers made wholly or in part from crop wastes and by-products. This will 

 furnish a practical test of the durability of paper produced from crop plants. 



Each sheet of four pages Is printed upon a different lot of paper, making a total of 

 five kinds of paper in the circular. A statement as to the kinds of material used and 

 the proportion cf each is appended. — Wm. A. T.\ylok, Actiny Chief of Bureau. 



EXPLANATOKY STATEMENT. 



The first or cover folio (pp. 1, 2, 19, and 20) is printed on paper made from shredded 

 cornstalks (80 per cent) and cotton-hull fiber (20 per cent). The raw materials were 

 cooked together in a stationary digester by the soda process. The pith colls of the 

 corn were partly removed liy passing the pulp once over a wet separator. 



The second folio (pp. 3, 4, 17. and 18) was made from shredded broom-corn stalks 

 (100 per cent) treated by the soda process. The pith cells were partly removed; long 

 fiber cells from the flbrovascular bundles and from the outside layer of the stalks 

 predominate. 



The third folio (pp. 5. 6, 1.5, and 16) contains rice-straw soda pulp (77 per cent) and 

 sulphite pulp from spruce (2:5 per cent). The rice straw was cooked alone, while the 

 bleached sulphite was added at the ideating engine. 



The fourth folio (pp. 7, 8, 13, and 14) contains broom-corn soda pulp (50 per cent) and 

 soda pulp from poplar wood (50 per cent) cooked separately and mixed at the boating 

 engine. None of the pith was removed from the broom-corn pulp. 



The fifth or middle folio (pp. 9, 10, 11, and 12) is made ivom comparatively pure, 

 long fiber pulp of cornstalks. Most of the pith cells were removed and no other fiber 

 was added. The variety of corn used in this case was Raid's Yellow Dent. 

 [Cir. 82] 



3 



