536 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AaRICULTURE. 



fabric, while the warp is composed of silk or hemp. About 250 pieces 

 ouly are manufactured at the principal manufacturing place. The paper- 

 mulberry grows everywhere in Japan, and is a valuable tree as furnish- 

 ing the bast from which a large portion of the Japanese paper is made. 

 The plants are reproduced in quantity by subdividing the roots, and in 

 two or three years are ready to be cut. This work is done in Novem- 

 ber, and the branches (7 to 10 feet long) are made up into bundles 3 or 

 4 feet in length, and steamed, so that the bark is loosened and can be 

 more readily stripped off. This is washed, dried, and then again soaked 

 in water and scraped with a knife to remove the outer skin, which is used 

 for inferior kinds of x)aper. The bast when cleaned is washed, repeat- 

 edly kneaded in clean water, and rinsed. It is then bleached in the 

 sun until sufficiently white, after which it is boiled in a lye, chiefly of 

 buckwheat ashes, to remove all gummy matters. The fibers are now 

 readily separated, and are transformed into pulp by beating with wooden 

 mallets. The pulp is mixed in vats with the necessary quantity of wa- 

 ter, to which is added a milky substance prepared from rice-flour, and 

 the gummy infusion of the bark of Hydrangea paniculata, or the root of 

 Hibiscus manihot. The couches on which the paper sheets are pro- 

 duced are made of bamboo, split into very thin sticks, and united in 

 parallel lines by silk or hemp threads, so as to form a kind of mat. This 

 itt laid upon a wooden frame and the apparatus dipped into the vat, 

 raised, and shaken so as to spread the pulp evenly, after which the cover 

 is first removed, then the bamboo couch with the sheet of paper, and in 

 returning the operative lays the sheet upon the others. When a num- 

 ber of sheets have thus been prepared they are pressed to exclude the 

 water, and afterwards spread out with a brush upon boards and allowed 

 to dry. The sheets are only about 2 feet in length, but sometimes 

 sheets 10 feet long are produced.* 



An effort was made in Europe to employ the paper-mulberry in the 

 manufacture of paper, but these efforts have resulted in nothing, and 

 the broussotietia remains an ornamental tree, and no one dreams oi util- 

 izing it in this industry. 



Vetillart says the fibers of this plant, when separated (by boiling in 

 an alkaline solution and afterwards ground in a mortar), " appear i)er- 

 fectly transparent, are striated longitudinally, and are often flattened 

 on each other, and convoluted like a ribbon ; the points are fringed and 

 terminate in a round end. They have a tendency to crisp and curl up 

 into rings, which indicates that they can be readily felted." As to 

 size, those bordering on the epidermis are larger than the fibers in the 

 parenchyma which border oif the zone of the cambium {Ficus species not 

 identified). 



In Bernardin's Catalogue, before mentioned, there are no less than 

 nine species of this genus represented as fiber-producing plants. Cele- 

 brated for one of its species yielding the fig, and another the caout- 

 chouc of Assam, the genus Ficus abounds in Southern Europe, Africa, 

 the warm parts of India, and the isles of the Southern Ocean, and rep- 

 resentatives are found in the Western hemisphere. • Eoyle alludes to 

 the genus and says " it is probable that the bark of some of the species, 

 like that of the paijer-mulberry, may be converted into half -stuff, as the 

 bark of one species is used for paper-making in the island of Ceylon." 



In^ the collection of Brazilian fibers (Exhibition, 1876), there is one 

 specimen that closely resembles the fiber of Broussonetia pajjyriferaj 

 which was obtained from a specimen of "wild fig" found growing on 



* This account is condensed firom a report by the Japanese Commissioners to the 

 Philadelphia Exhibition, 1876. 



