Fibres. 



356 



[June 1907. 



Mr. Sindall says 5 that the cost of sufficient raw material to make one ton of indif- 

 ferent wood pulp is Rs- 21 and the trees are difficult to collect, whereas the cost of 

 preparing one ton of excellent bamboo pulp is only Rs. 22-80 and the bamboos are 

 easily collected. 



For ourselves we should like to see careful experiments made with the spruce, 

 silver fir and blue pine forests which cover such large tracts in the N.-W. Himalaya 

 with the object of comparing the wood pulp obtained from them with that of 

 Enrope. I can scarcely be doubted that the day will arrive when paper mills run 

 by water power will be erected in the outer Himalaya and that fortunes will be made 

 in the Indian wood pulp trade. 



Mr. Sindall also experimented with rice straw, which produced a fairly 

 tough pulp and would make up into good paper and tough-card board and with the 

 Khing grass so common in Burma, which also gave a good pulp. This grass grows 

 rank, but with systematic cutting the author considers that it would give a splendid 

 fibre and asserts that an investigation of this product might amply repay the 

 trouble.— Indian Forester, February, 1907. 



