20 



THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



only about 5 per cent of the total annual cut. There has been 

 in consequence an eager search instituted for other sources of 

 supply of pulp and attention naturally turned to corn-stalks, 

 bagasse, (the pulp remaining after the juice is pressed from 

 sugar cane), cotton-stalks, and cotton-seed hulls. There is an 

 unlimited supply of these substances, but each of them has some 

 radical manufacturing defect which prevents it from supplant- 

 ing wood as our chief source of supply. 



At present it would cost more per pound to make w-hite 

 paper from any one of them than from wood. Cornstalks, in- 

 deed, make a very good grade of white book paper, and there 

 exists an absolutely unlimited supply compared to present con- 

 sumption. This supply is, of course, renewed annually, and is 

 a by-product of one of the world's great staple food plants. 

 Moreover, there is a valuable pith obtained from the cornstalks 

 which is used in calking battle-ships, and a cattle food may also 

 be obtained at the time of making it into pulp. AA^hy, then, 

 cannot paper be made from this material and the destruction 

 of our forests entirely stopped, at least so far as their use for 

 producing paper pulp is concerned? The answer is a purely 

 commercial one — it costs more to make this same grade of 

 paper from cornstalks; and therefore a paper can never be 

 made from them until the cost of wood rises above that of pro- 

 ducing pulp from cornstalks. This will not occur very soon, 

 as the cost of w^ood pulp, in spite of its alarming scarcity in this 

 country is held down by competition in various foreign coun- 

 tries where wood is still very plentiful and where labor, the 

 largest item in the expense of pulp making, is very much 

 cheaper than in the United States. 



In addition to the above must be cited the expense of as- 

 sembling the cornstalks over enormously large areas as com- 

 pared to wood, the extra cost for freight, and the final and 

 fatal defect — that is, a yield of only about 300 pounds of coni- 

 mercial pulp from a ton of stalks, whereas a ton of spruce 



