70 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



was spacious and well appointed — good hotels seem common in 

 Sweden, The towns, speaking generally, are well arransed, the 

 houses substantially built, and the streets broad, while gardens 

 and open spaces are numerous. The inhabitants lack none of 

 the amenities of modern civil life. 



At Jonkoping the Arboricultural Excursion began in earnest. 

 The Munksjo Paper-Mills were first inspected. At this factory 

 five hundred people are employed. The pulp used for paper- 

 making comes chiefly from spruce wood. Ordinary round logs 

 are brought into the mill, cut crosswise into short lengths, and 

 passed up a moving inclined plane to men who quickly strip off 

 the bark, partly by means of machinery, but partly also by hand 

 work. The short logs are then conducted to the chopping 

 machine, which cuts them into small, thin sections. The chips 

 pass up on broad revolving belts into the " cooking " vats. 

 During their passage they are examined, and all knotty or 

 otherwise defective pieces are removed. In the boilers the wood 

 is reduced to pulp by a chemical process — calcium-sulphite and 

 caustic soda being used. After twelve to eighteen hours of this 

 preparation, the pulp is brought into the paper-making mill. It 

 leaves the boilers as small, much macerated, brownish pieces. 

 Pounded and mixed with water, it flows in semi-liquid condition 

 on to fine sieves that have a forward motion. Conducted by 

 these to rollers, it is pressed ; again sieves free it from moisture, 

 more rollers follow, until, in a matted sheet, it reaches steam 

 drying drums, and the paper-making process is complete. Paper 

 of many qualities and degrees of thickness is made at this mill, 

 which is also well known for a certain roofing felt or tarred 

 pasteboard that is largely exported. The Munksjo Company 

 owns forests from which it annually fells for paper-pulp 750,000 

 cubic feet^ (English measurement) of timber, and the demand 

 is constantly increasing. 



From the paper-mill the party went on to a match-making 

 factory. Jonkoping is famous for its matches. Individually 

 so insignificant, matches become in their wholesale manufacture 

 an important industry. The wood of the aspen poplar (Fopulus 

 tremula) is preferred to all others, but the local supply being 



^ The conversion of Swedish measurements into their British equivalents 

 has been effected by taking the hectare as being equal to 2*5 acres, and the 

 cubic metre as 35 cu>)ic feet, with a reduction of 25 per cent, to allow for 

 the Britisii quarter-girth system. 



