388 REPORT ON MATERIALS 
Memorandum on Materials for the manufacture of Paper 
procurable from India. 
In reply to the reference from the Lords of the Committee 
of Privy Council for Trade, requiring my opinion respecting 
increased supplies of raw material for Paper-making, I beg to 
be allowed to observe that it is a subject on which I have of 
late been frequently consulted, and have communicated much 
of the following information. 
Paper, it is well known, is in Europe made chiefly from 
linen or cotton rags, but also from the refuse and sweepings of 
cotton- and flax-mills, as also of the coverings of our cotton 
bales and of worn-out ropes. But paper is also made from the 
stems and leaves of many grasses, as from rice straw, and from 
the bamboo by the Chinese, and of late from common straw in 
this country, and even from wood shavings. The fibrous part 
of many Lily- and Aloe-leaved plants have been converted into 
excellent paper in India, where the fibres of Tiliaceous, Mal- 
vaceous, and Leguminous plants are employed for the same 
purpose: as in the Himalayas, one of the Lace-bark tribe (p. 
310) is similarly employed, and in China one of the Mulberry 
tribe, and the Nettle in Holland. I mention these various 
sources, because plants belonging to the same families as the 
above abound in India and other warm countries, and are 
capable of yielding a very abundant and never-failing supply of 
sufficiently cheap and very excellent material for paper-making 
of all kinds. Some may be used without any further process 
of bleaching, but all are capable of having any colour they may 
possess destroyed by chemical means. I would not except 
the jute canvas or gunny bagging, because I have seen 
specimens of jute of a beautiful silky white, both plain and 
manufactured into fabrics for furniture, &c., &c., as shown by 
the late Colonel Calvert at the East India House. 
As the Chinese make paper of rice straw, and of the young 
shoots of the bamboo, while the Hindoos make ropes of 
different grasses (such as Saccharum Munja and 8S. Sara) strong 
enough for their Persian wheels as well as for towing lines, it 
is evident that these and probably many others contain a suffi- 
' Some of it was published about the same time in the ‘ Gardener’s Chronicle.’ 
