84 [Assembly 



pound, being $165200,00(>, (sixteen millions two hundred thousand 

 dollars;.) and assuming the present supply of rags to be an average 

 product for years of the imported and home grown, it will, in a 

 few more, at our increasing rate of population, fall far below the 

 actual demand. 



Although the importation of rags from Great Britain to the 

 United States, has quadrupled during the last four years, the 

 increase in the demand for paper there for home consumption has 

 been equally great, and must end in their being prohibited for 

 exportation by a heavy duty, if the mother country is to be kept 

 supplied. My tables show that in 1850, there were exported 

 to this country from Great Britain, $30,000 (thirty thousand dol- 

 lars) worth of rags; in 1852, $54,000 worth, or two and one-half 

 millions of pounds; and in 1853, $150,000 worth, or four and 

 one-quarter millions of pounds ; while in England alone within the 

 last two years, the increase in the manufacture of paper has been 

 twenty-three millions of pounds, equivalent to a consumption of 

 thirty millions of pounds of rags. 



During a late visit to the West India Islands, I had ample op- 

 portunities for noticing the abundance of Hbrous plants, and test- 

 ing their qualities for paper making. I allude to the Plantain, 

 Banana, Ochra, Aloe, Penguin and Dagger grass, and others indi- 

 genous to the tropics. Th© adoption of these might answer du- 

 ring a temporary scarcity of rags, but the enormous quantity 

 required, thousands of tons, and their advancing price when once 

 the article is in demand, some of them rising in value in a few 

 weeks over 500 per cent, in their dry state; and plantain, the 

 the most productive even reaching $80 per ton, will , preclude 

 their sole use, while some require much labor to collect and 

 bring them to serviceable material for the mills. These lose so 

 much in theii* preparation, that they cease to be economical, 

 when put into competition with cotton waste, (none yielding 

 higher than 35 per cent, and the average below 15;) while others 

 cannot be profitably bleached, and are fitted only for wrapping 

 paper. 



The source of supply of rags to which I would direct attention 

 either of companies or private speculators, is from, the contents 



