August, 1910.] 



Ill 



Fibres. 



price of a quality suitable for paper- 

 making should be substantially less. 

 Mr. Siudall estimates that a ton of 

 unbleached bamboo pulp can be produced 

 by the soda process in a mill within 

 reasonable distance of the bamboo area 

 for about £5. 10s. Bamboo grows with 

 such rapidity and is reproduced so easily 

 that, according to Raitt's estimates, a 

 piece of laud 4 miles long and 5 miles 

 wide is sufficient to supply a mill making 

 300 tons of pulp per week with the 35,000 

 "and 36,000 tons of bamboo required as an 

 annual supply. 



The Problem of Utilising Bagasse 

 Studied, 



Several large associated interests have 

 carried forward during the year an 

 active investigation of the problem of 

 utilising bagasse as paper stock, The 

 disastrous experience of the many experi- 

 menters who have endeavoured to solve 

 this problem in the past upon the com- 

 mercial scale has made it clearly evident 

 that some wholly new line of attack was 

 necessary. It now seems probable that 

 as the result of a radically new departure 

 in manufacturing methods large quant- 

 ities of bagasse stock will become avail- 

 able within a short time. The possi- 

 bility of this result is due to the fact 

 that the new method introduces at the 

 same time large economies in the manu- 

 facture of the sugar for which the cane 

 is grown. 



Lalang Grass as a Raw Material. 



The clearing of the large estates in the 

 Malay Peninsula for the planting of rub- 

 ber trees and the high cost of extermi- 

 nating the lalang grass with which th.3 

 ground is infested, has again called 

 attention to this grass as a source of 

 paper pulp, but, although the Johore, 

 Malay Peninsula, papermaking conces- 

 sion for utilising grass was granted in 

 1891, it has not become a commercial 

 source of fibre. The earliest studies of 

 Clayton Beadle, who found the grass to 

 yield 46 % of a well bulking fibre longer 

 than esparto, have recently been exten- 

 ded by Remington and Bovvack, who 

 obtained a yield of 47 - 41% of a fibre 

 resembling esparto in papermaking qual- 

 ity. 



All Promising Raw Materials 

 Should be Studied. 

 There can be no question as to the 

 desirability of a systematic investigation 

 of all promising raw materials with a 

 view to extending the supply of avail- 

 able paper stock, but so much of this 

 work is undertaken without due regard 

 to the conditions of the problem that 

 attention should be called to the recent 

 remarks of William Raitt upon the sub- 

 ject of fibre prospectiug, which may be 

 extracted as below. 



Tests to be Applied to Fibrous 

 Materials. 

 The following tests must be applied to 

 a fibrous material to determine if it is 

 to be suitable for papermaking : — 



First, it must have no value for any 

 other economic purpose. 



Second, it must be capable of natural 

 reproduction, and not liable to exhaus- 

 tion under a reasonable system of crop- 

 ping. 



Third, it must mature at periods ex- 

 ceeding three years. 



Fourth, it must require cultivation. 



Fifth, it must necessitate no manual 

 or mechanical manipulation for separat- 

 ing the fibre. 



Sixth, its habit must be gregarious, 

 but it must have sufficient local abun- 

 dance to bring the cost of cutting and 

 collecting within economic limits. 



Seventh, it must contain at least 30% 

 of cellulose (or in my own opinion, at 

 least 40%). 



Eighth, the total quantity within 

 economic collecting radius of a mill site 

 must be sufficient to produce at least 

 25,000 tons of pulp annually. 



Ninth, it must grow in a locality 

 possessing cheap labour and a good 

 water supply. 



Tenth, it must grow within economic 

 range of power, and transport to 

 seaport 



It may be added that Raitt regards 

 the field as limited geographically by 

 the above considerations to south- 

 eastern Asia and to a series of fibrous 

 grasses of which bamboo is pre-eminent- 

 ly the leader. 



