m 



of fibre in the remainder. The value of this 

 fibre, if found suitable for manufacturing paper, 

 strawboards, &c., would then lower the total cost 

 of destruction of the plants. It may be added 

 that the original suggestion to employ the woody 

 fibre of prickly-pear for the purpose under con- 

 sideration actually emanated from a technical 

 paper, the " World's Paper Trade Eeview," of 

 1909, published in the interests of paper pro- 

 duction. (Fide Imperial Trade Commissioner, 

 F. Finuean.) 



When the plant has died or been killed, and 

 its contained water dissipated by evaporation, 

 the material remaining is largely composed of 

 ligneous tissue and other dry substance. This 

 remains as a " waste material," after the carry- 

 ing out of any of the methods in vogue for 

 destroying the plant, and is of no value on the 

 spot, in fact, costing money for its removal, for 

 which there is no return. 



In the industries identified with paper manu- 

 facture in the most general acceptation of the 

 term, and more particularly in those manufac- 

 turing processes which turn out the pulp needed 

 for these industries, enormous quantities of lig- 

 neous tissue are used, principally derived from 

 wood, some forty different kinds of trees being 

 drawn upon for this purpose. To give an idea of 

 the extent to which wood-pulp is employed, it 

 may be stated that in 1907, amongst the materials 

 for paper manufacture, England alone imported 

 no less than 500,000 tons (Cross, Bevan, and Sin- 

 dall), an amount that has continuously received 

 a large annual increment. Again, the United 

 States, in the year ending 30th June, 1910, 

 imported 423,721 tons. This, however, was only 

 17 per cent, of the quantity manufactured in 

 that country during the year 1909 (Forest Pro- 

 ducts, Bureau of the Census, U. S. Dep. Com. and 

 Lab., 1911), which thus must have totalled 

 2,457,581 tons.* The United States itself pro- 

 duced 2,533,976 tons in 1910. 



At the present rate of consumption of wood 

 for this paper-making, the devastation of forest 

 areas has become so serious a matter that the 

 Governments of the various countries in which 

 these forests exist, are taking vigorous steps in 

 the first instance to prevent their absolute destruc- 

 tion, but further to secure a systematic upkeep 

 (Cross, Bevan, and Sindall). This fact has been 

 emphasised as regards the United States by the 

 Bureau of Plant Industry, which mentions that 

 by 1950 it will be impossible to supply local re- 

 quirements in wood-pulp from its own forests, if 

 the continuous increases in its use now in vogue 

 are continued. (C. J. Brand, Physiologist, Cir- 

 cular 82, Aug., 1911, No. 19.) 



Accordingly, not only is afforestation urged 

 in the interests of these requirements all the 

 world over, but attention is actually turned to 



* Short tons— 2,000 lb. 



the expediency of growing agricultural crops to 

 meet the requirement, and the suitability of corn- 

 stalks, brown millet stalks, sugar-cane megass, 

 cotton-hull fibre, &c., has been urged for this 

 purpose (C. J. Brand, op. cit., p. 16, &c.) ; and it 

 has been pointed out that they can be probably 

 grown at a profit to both the grower and the 

 manufacturer. To meet the necessities of the case, 

 however, the paper manufacturer or pulp manu- 

 facturer not only wants suitable materials, but 

 "some assurances upon the subject of adequate 

 supplies before he is disposed to try a material 

 on an extensive scale, for he knows perfectly that 

 there are many wood fibres from which he could 

 make paper provided they can be obtained in 

 sufficient quantity to make the enterprise a finan- 

 cial success" (Clayton, Beale, and Stevens, 

 Journ. Bd. Agr., 1914, p. 915). 



Certain descriptions of paper and pulp are 

 manufactured from the crudest materials. Thus 

 " paper-board " for boxes which now figure so 

 largely in trade,* is made of materials, including 

 not only old paper of all descriptions that is 

 "reworked" for the purpose, but refuse from 

 pulp-mills, screenings, straw, old rope, old bag- 

 ging, low-grade wood-pulp, &c. The same 

 materials are used for other forms of boards, 

 &c. — e.g., roofing-boards, mill-boards, leather- 

 boards, trunk and portmanteau boards, panel- 

 boards, straw-boards, &c., &c. Accordingly it 

 has been considered advisable, in the interests 

 of this inquiry, to discover whether this waste 

 material yielded by priekly-pear can in a measure 

 fulfil this demand and be manufactured into 

 some kind of brown pulp. It is not a ques- 

 tion of whether prickly-pear can be profitably 

 converted into paper-pulp, but whether the lig- 

 neous fibre available can be manufactured into 

 a commodity that may fetch a price that will be 

 an adequate set-off to the cost of destroying the 

 plant. Much less is it a question of manufac- 

 turing a high-class wood-pulp or paper such as 

 that on which these words are printed. 



In approaching manufacturers and dealers 

 in the raw materials employed in the manu- 

 facture of the various kinds of paper-boards and 

 of the coarser and tougher varieties of paper 

 (e.g., mill-boards, leather-boards, tip, trunk, box, 

 panel, drawing, fibre boards, &e.), in order to 

 ascertain how far the ligneous tissue yielded 

 by the prickly-pear might, if available in suffi- 

 cient quantities, fulfil the conditions demanded 

 of, and possess the essential features embodied 

 in such substances, the drawback of having 

 no samples of this to submit to them militated 

 against any success from the inquiry, for they 

 beforehand knew nothing regarding the char- 

 aicteristics of the prickly-pear yielding substance 



* The manufacturers of fibre-boxes (alone) in the United 

 States use approximately 116,000 tons of fibre-board a 

 year (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service Cir. 

 No. 177, May, 1911). 



