The Manufacture of Paper. 49 
- The loss in the manufacture of the articles I have named, 
are approximately—rags, 30 per cent.; Manilla hemp (clean), 
for brown paper, 35 per cent. ; esparto, 40 per cent. ; jute, 
40 per cent. ; straw, 60 per cent. ; which at once shows the 
value of esparto and jute over straw, and of rags over all. 
Between jute and esparto it is difficult to judge, but I be- 
lieve that esparto is preferred for white paper, while jute 
works much easier into brown. 
It was with the idea of finding a substitute for esparto in 
case paper mills were started here, that towards the close 
of 1865 I began a series of experiments on grasses growing 
in the neighbourhood of Melbourne, and have found that 
Victoria produces many fibrous plants that may be used in 
the manufacture of paper, a branch of industry which must 
at some time become an important one to this colony. It is 
not my intention to give you an account of all the fibrous 
plants I have examined, as I should then be encroaching too 
much on the province of our learned member, Dr. Mueller, 
who has told us through our President that he has found 
some forty plants which yield a fibre from which paper may 
be made ; but I shall limit myself to calling your attention 
to two grasses, or more properly, perhaps, sedges. 
The Xerotes Longifola anda variety of Lepidosperma, 
which I believe to be extremely well adapted for mixing 
with rags for a white paper, or alone or with any of the 
ordinary ingredients for making brown and wrapping papers. 
These two plants are to be found over almost the whole 
colony, especially on dry, open, sandy country, such as that 
between Melbourne and Frankston, where they cover 
miles, to the exclusion of almost every other plant. In some 
places the Xerotes Longifolia predominates, in others the 
Lepidosperma is in greater quantity ; but this is immaterial 
to the manufacturer, as the treatment is the same for both 
grasses. On this dry country the plants grow from eighteen 
inches to two feet in height, but when near water, to a much 
greater height. I have seen it near the edge of a swamp at 
Western Port growing to a height of six feet or more, but the 
fibre in this was much weaker than in the short grass, and the 
loss in manufacture would be much greater on account of a 
pithy substance which encircles the fibres, which would be lost 
while the fibre was being converted into pulp. I have also 
noticed a considerable difference in strength between samples 
of the grass gathered at the close of 1865 and that gathered 
at the end of the past year—that of 1865 being stronger and 
E 
