TEXTILE WOOD-FIBHB. 65 



a hard tenacious wood, sdl and babul being excellent for the 

 purpose. 



The manufacture of walking-sticks consumes a considerable quan- 

 tity of branch wood and saplings. Amongst monocotyledons we 

 have canes, bamboos, and palms ; amongst dicotyledons we have 

 oaks, cotoneaster, ebony, Mimnsops indiea, Alangium Lamarckii, 

 Prinsepia utilis, &c., &c. 



Aetiolb 16. Wood foe basket and MAT-jiAKma. 



Bamhoos and canes are par excellence the materials for making 

 baskets and mats. The bamboos should be cut for the purpose 

 before they are a year old, as they afterwards become too highly 

 lignified to split well or to bend and take new shapes easily. 

 Dicotyledons largely employed for basket-making are willows, Vitea 

 Negundo, Byctanthes Arbor-tristis, Homonoya riparia and numer- 

 ous other shrubs forming a profusion of long, twiggy, highly flexi- 

 ble shoots. In every case the wood should be used in a green 

 condition ; the fresher cut, the better. Wood for basket-making, 

 although flexible while green, should become fairly rigid when 

 dry, in order that the articles made from it may keep their shape. 

 For this reason climbers are seldom suitable for the purpose. In 

 the case of dicotyledonous species stool and pollard shoots furnish 

 the best material. 



Abticle 17. Wood used foe the manueactube of paokinq 



matebial. 



Thin shavings of wood are now coming largely into use for the 

 packing of brittle articles. This wood wool, as it is called, is very 

 rapidly prepared by special machinery, which will work up pieces 

 as small as ^-inch in thickness and 6 inches long. The softest 

 woods, possessing long, straight, and parallel fibres, will furnish 

 the best material. 



Aeticle 18. Textile wood-fibee. 



Wood wool, as described in the preceding Article, is digested 

 in a solution of sulphuric acid in hermetically sealed, slowly rotat- 

 ing boilers, the encrusting matters being thus separated from 

 the cellulose, which becomes white and lustrous like silk. These 

 thin strips of fibre are then dried in special ovens, in which they 

 acquire great toughness and elasticity. They are now moistened 

 and passed between grooved rollers, which, in flattening them out, 



