124 USE OF WOOD IN PAPER-MAKING— CHARCOAL. 



-wootls, when macerated and separated, are long and flat, with dotted 

 places, and bending easily in one plane only. They do not twist and 

 untwist when wetted and dried. The deciduous woods yield a fiber 

 averaging a tenth of an inch long, and a little over a thousandth part 

 of an inch in diameter. They are tubular and pointed, and when freed 

 from intercellular matter, very flexible. 



The Japanese Paper Mulberry. — Broussonetia papyrifera. 



Visitors at the Exposition at Vienna, in 1873, and at the Centennial 

 Exhibition at Philadelphia, in 1876, had an opportunity of examining 

 articles of paper and papier-mach6 that were worthy of admiration. 

 The material from which these were made, was the bark of the ^roMsso- 

 Meiia^a|>?/n/era or paper mulberry, a tree that grows with great luxuri- 

 ance where introduced in the Middle States ; in fact, multiplying so abun- 

 dantly by shoots from tracing roots as to become a nuisance when once 

 established.^ 



CHARCOAL — DISTILLED PRODUCTS OF WOOD. 



The use of charcoal in the manufacture of iron and other metals, and 

 the various demands for its use in the arts, render this subject an im- 

 portant one in the study of Forestry, and give an interest to every ques- 

 tion that may result in improved methods of production or economy in 

 its use. It has not unfrequently happened that a furnace or a forge has 

 proved profitable until the supplies of wood for making charcoal have 

 been exhausted, without attention to the growth of another crop, and 

 it is reasonable to suppose that in future, much more than in the past, 

 calculations upon the capacity of land under given circumstances for 

 the growth of wood, the age, and season of the year at which it should 

 be cut, the kinds of timber most profitable for this use, and the most 

 economical methods of making and using charcoal, will have great 

 practical interest. 



With the view of obtaining data for a study of this subject, a circu- 

 lar was addressed to the several charcoal-iron furnaces of the countrv, 

 and we are able to present in the following table the results as reported 

 from twenty-three of these establishments. In the present state of this 

 industry, many of these are now idle, and nothing could be reported 

 from the experience of the last year. The returns, however, represent 



1 The process of manufacture is unknown as a practical art in Europe and America, 

 but a brief description may lead to experiments, and perhaps to successful application : 



The tree is cultivated with facility from cuttings, or by planting short pieces of root 

 in the grouud, so that one end just appears above the surface. It will sometimes grow 

 a foot high the first year, and a yard the second. At about the third year it will bo at 

 the height of twelve feet. In the tenth month of each year they cut off the shoots 

 close to the root, when several sprouts will appear, until thoy become a dense mass of 

 shoots, which fui-nish the material for paper. They are cut into pieces eome two feet 

 long, and warmed in water till the bark can be easily peeled off by hand. It is then 

 dried in the open air, immersed for twenty-four hours in running water, and beaten to 

 separate the two kinds of fibers of which the bark is composed. The outside being of 

 a dark color, is used for making paper of inferior quality, aud the inner fibers for the 

 finer sorts. The latter are made into masses of thirty pounds, washed in running 

 •water, and placed in tubs full of water, aud after a time taken out and pressed by 

 loading with stones. For artificial leather this substance is then treated with a lye 

 made from the ashes of buckwheat bran, stirred for a time, again washed in running 

 ■water till quite free from impurities, again beaten, and finally made into balls, and 

 formed into shape for use. For paper they add an extract from the root of the Hibis- 

 cus manihot, and in summer some rice-water. It is then treated in the same manner as 

 pulp in the manufacture of paper. 



