236 RICHMOND. 



out as the Attest and most natural successor to the position occupied by spruce 

 and pine trees during the last thiry years; while its power of self-reproduction 

 makes it impossible that the procass of exhaustion of supply, which has taken 

 place in the case of these timbers, can ever happen with bamboo.' 



The particular value of Riatt's results lies in his extensive observations 

 on the manner and habits of growth and reproduction of selected species 

 of Indian bamboos and the applicability of the information obtained to 

 the bamboos of other tropical or subtropical regions. This practical phase 

 in the commercial use of bamboo will be taken up at another place, when 

 the availability of the Philippine bamboo forests for commercial use is 

 discussed. 



An extended laboratory study of a new or hitherto commercially 

 untried raw material for a specific purpose should be of a comparative 

 nature. In judging of the pulp and paper making qualities of bamboo, 

 it should be directly compared with the material with which it will 

 necessarily compete on the world's markets, namehy, pulp wood. The 

 comparison should consider, first, the applicability of present methods of 

 manufacture, and, second, the suitability of the manufactured product 

 to present uses. While I fully realize that a laboratoiy examination of 

 a given raw material for a specific commercial use is not as conclusive 

 to the average prospective investor as a practical test under actual man- 

 ufacturing conditions, in the absence of an opportunity for such a practical 

 trial I have endeavored to approximate actual factory procedure in all of 

 my experimental work, and, personally, I am satisfied that the results 

 obtained will not prove misleading. 



At the present time wood pulp is manufactured by two distinct proc- 

 esses: (1) the so-called mechanical process, which consists in grinding 

 the wood into pulp by means of rapidly revolving stones; and (.2) the 

 chemical process, in which the wood is reduced to pulp by the direct 

 action of alkalies or acids. 



The mechanical process is not applicable because of the physical 

 structure of bamboo, hence the commercial utilization of this material 

 for paper stock is limited to chemical means of pulp production. 



Until quite recently, it was considered that the acid or sulphite proc- 

 ess was better adapted to certain species of woods than that of soda or 

 alkalines and vice versa. In 1900 poplar was the only wood made into 

 soda pulp, while in 1907 spruce, balsam, and some hard woods were 

 prepared in this way; and, although statistics for 1907 show that over 95 

 per cent of all the wood treated by the sulphite process was spruce and 

 hemlock, this does not necessarily mean that it was employed because of 

 the nature of the raw material, but rather because the governing condi- 

 tions were such that it was cheaper of application. It remains to be 

 seen whether the character of hard woods, none of which to my knowledge 

 as yet have been subjected to the sulphite process, limits this method of 

 manufacture. 



