23 



The following table, prepared in Bavaria, exhibits the composition of the 

 leaves produced annually by an acre of forest under beech, pine, or spruce, as- 

 compared with that of a ton of wheat straw : 



Saw dust also forms a good litter for cows and horses ; and though destitute 

 itself of manurial value, being very absorbent of liquid manure, can, when thus 

 soaked, be used as a valuable top dressing. 



Finally, if the forester has any waste that he cannot utilize in the tan pit 

 or the charcoal retort, as paper pulp, or as firewood, it is probably best to burn 

 it so as to avoid harboring insects and fungus life. By so doing he will lose 

 little of the manurial value of the refuse, and leached ashes, being rich in pot- 

 ash, is a valuable dressing for old grass land, orchards, market gardens, onions, 

 rye, and other crops. The potash might even be recovered by lixiviation of the 

 ashes and used for many purposes. 



THE PRODUCTION OF WOOD PULP.* 







The wood-pulp industry may be said to have commenced in the year 1846, 

 But its development during the first thirty years was decidedly slow. Since 

 1876, however, the production of this material has increased rapidly. Its pre- 

 industrial period was known only to the chemist. Cellulose was made in the 

 laboratory in 1840, but it was not manufactured commercially till 1852. Ground 

 wood was first used for paper-making about the year 1846, when it was manu- 

 factured by Keller under a patent taken out in Saxony in the previous year. 

 Since that date many improvements have been made in the machinery and 

 methods used in grinding, the main object being to produce a longer and finer 

 fibre. The fibres of the wood are torn away by mechanical pressure against a 

 revolving grindstone in contact with water. No chemical treatment of the wood 

 is necessary, the only requirements of this industry being cheap wood, abundant 

 water-power and suitable machinery. 



Processes, such as Sinclair's, have long been in use for pulping very finely cut 

 coniferous wood, and in the Paris Exhibition of 1880 one of the most prominent 

 objects exhibited in the Norwegian Section was a pate de bois or papier mache, 

 made in this way from pine wood, and worked into cardboard and various moulded 

 pannellings, etc. It has been found, moreover, that in this way the whole of a 

 pine tree trunk branches, needles, and all can be converted into paper without 

 waste. Saplings, which it would not pay to cut for firewood, are now profitably 

 worked up in this way into pasteboard. 



* By G. F. Green, C. F. Cross and E. J. Bevan, in Forestry and Forest Products (Edinburgh), 1884. 



