MATERIALS USED FOR PAPER. 151. 



and finally the potato itself; this latter substance 

 proved a most excellent material, producing a paper 

 extremely smooth and soft to the touch, while its 

 tenacity approached nearer to parchment than any 

 other vegetable substance thus employed, arid caused 

 M. Schaffer to esteem it as a valuable drawing- 

 paper, which he recommended should be manufac- 

 tured exclusively for that purpose, as he supposed 

 that an edible substance might be deemed too va- 

 luable to allow of its extensive use except as an 

 article of food. 



A good and cheap paper was produced from 

 " pine buds," which, from the description given of 

 them, are the common fir-apples or fruit of fir-trees. 

 These are well known as being hard woody cones, 

 composed of scales overlapping each other. A sin- 

 gular accident led to the attempt with so apparently 

 unappropriate a substance. 



M. Schaffer's foreman had purchased a particular 

 kind of bird whose natural food is the fir-apple. 

 Soon after it had been provided with its first meal, 

 the man remarked a considerable quantity of downy 

 litter in the bird's cage, and supposing that it had 

 been negligently introduced with its food, the careful 

 owner cleansed the cage, and procured a fresh sup- 

 ply of the pine buds. After a time, the same ap- 

 pearance was again observed in the cage, and on 

 watching the movements of the bird, it was found 

 diligently tearing to pieces each scale of the cone, 

 until at length the whole assumed the form of a ball 

 of tow, and then it was in a proper state of prepara- 

 tion to be used as food by the feathered epicure. 

 Profiting by this hint, its owner went joyfully to tell 

 the wonderful labours of the industrious bird, and 

 how it had converted the harsh fir cone into a ma- 

 terial of which paper could be made. No time was 

 lost in imitating the operations of the bird on the fir- 



