38 Spartina Problems 



of overcropping, and if exploitation should be undertaken the matter 

 will have to be carefully considered 1 . 



Our experience of drying is confined to natural means. Spread out 

 on exposed wind-swept ground in fine weather (August and September) 

 the cut should be dry in three weeks. If through broken weather it is 

 still wet by the middle of September there may be difficulty in saving 

 the crop. Drying is hastened by arranging the grass in little stooks or 

 resting it against brushwood or hurdles. On the whole with vigilance 

 and judicious handling the crop should be capable of natural drying 

 three years out of four. But the possibilities of artificial drying deserve 

 serious consideration. 



(2) Conversion into pulp. In the trials hitherto carried out the 

 Spartina fibre has been boiled and bleached according to the standard 

 treatment for esparto. Though the pulp possesses distinctly useful 

 qualities in paper-making we prefer to speak here of some of its short- 

 comings, as the correction of these is a necessary preliminary to its 

 adoption. Some of these are uncurable, such as the yield, which averages 

 30 per cent, on the dry weight of fibre boiled. This defect it is to be hoped 

 may be compensated by the purity and density of the stands, the relative 

 ease of harvesting and the proximity of the home market. Meanwhile 

 there is the difficulty of bleaching the pulp to a satisfactory colour. 

 Until this is solved by a special chemical research it is hopeless to think 

 of Spartina as a material for fine papers. Should the bleaching problem 

 prove insoluble Spartina Townsendii could probably be converted into 

 straw boards as was the related American slough grass {Spartina mi- 

 chauxiana) at Quincy in Ohio. 



Another trouble concerns the hydration of the pulp; Spartina-pulp 

 is rather apt to "run wet" on the paper-making machine, a defect which 

 may depend (as some experts suspect) on its marine origin— a new 

 factor in the origin of these raw materials. These and other matters of 

 like nature will have to be smoothed out before Spartina can take its 

 place in the paper industry, just as must always have been the case 

 with other raw materials in this and other industries. Whatever may 

 come of the present project it is hard to believe that at some future time, 

 when Spartina has spread into all the muds of our shores, this plant will 

 not find a use in the paper-making world. Allowing for an average yield 

 of two tons dry weight per acre enough Spartina is already present in these 

 waters to feed a mill all the year round with 100 to 150 tons per week. 



1 The collection of esparto grass is carefully regulated in this sense. Cf . H. de Montessus 

 de Ballore, Alfa et papier d'alja (Dunod and Pinat, 1909), p. 9. 



