PAPER PLANTS IN JAPAN. 11 



exported every year into America to supply our paper mills. At 

 Mannheim on- the Rhine the American importers have their rag- 

 picking houses, where the rags are collected from all over Europe, the 

 disease-infected Levant not excepted, and where women and children, 

 too poor to earn a better living, work day after day, with wet sponges 

 tied over their mouths, sorting these hlthy scraps for shipment to New 

 York. Our best papers are made of these rags and our common ones 

 of wood pulp, which is obtained by grinding and macerating huge 

 blocks from some of our soft-wooded forest trees. The bast papers, 

 therefore, are a creation of the Orient and are more nearly related to 

 the South Sea Island tapa than to any of our products. 



To the fact that they are made from bark they owe their peculiar 

 character. They are as a rule softer, silkier, tougher, and lighter than 

 our papers. If wet, they lose their strength, like tissue paper, but 

 on drying regain it. They are usually absorbent, and for this rea- 

 son were considered in the olden days as very valuable in surgery. 

 Whether or not the methods employed in their manufacture are 

 responsible for the yellow tinge which they always have is a question 

 for investigation. As writing papers they are designed for brush 

 work, and as a rule are not suited without treatment for pen work, 

 because the fibers in them are so long that they are continually getting 

 caught in the nibs. This difficulty, however, is obviated by a dressing 

 of alum. 



SPECIES OF PAPER PLANTS IN JAPAN. 



According to the Japanese writers, there are at least nine plants 

 from which papers are made in Japan, each species furnishing a 

 different variety of product. Two are species of the paper mulberry 

 (J3rou8Sonetia), one the white mulberry (Moms alba), another a species 

 of Daphne (D. pseuoZo-mezereum Gray), three are wild forms of a 

 small tree ( Wickstrcemia), and one, the Edgeworthia papyri/era, fur- 

 nishes the pulp for the mitsumata paper, of which we import large 

 quantities every year, especially for use as legal documents, diplomas, 

 deeds, bonds, etc. 



The main object of the writer is to give a description of the mitsu- 

 mata plant and its culture, with the purpose of interesting Americans 

 in the question of its cultivation and the manufacture of the extremely 

 useful papers which can be produced from its bark and which deserve 

 to be widely known throughout America. 



THE MITSUMATA PLANT. 



Edgeworthia papyrifera S. & Z. is the botanical name of the mitsu- 

 mata paper plant, and the systematists place it, along with the Daphne, 

 anions' a number of forms with lace-like bark, in the order Thymel&eae. 



• 



It is a pretty, decorative shrub, with characteristically branching 



