WOOD PULP FOR PAPER. 127 
plantain fibre (Manila hemp), are not only expensive, but it is nearly- 
impossible to bleach them. The banana leaves contain 40 per cent, of 
fibre. Flax would be suitable to replace rags in paper-manufacture, 
but the high price and scarcity of it, caused partly by the injudicious 
way in which it is cultivated, prevent that. Six tons of flax straw are 
required to produce one ton of flax fibre, and by the present mode of 
treatment all the woody part is lost. By my process the bulk of the 
flax straw is lessened by partial cleaning before retting, whereby about 
50 to 60 per cent, of shoves (a most valuable cattle-food) are saved, and 
the cost of the fibre reduced. By the foregoing it will be seen that the 
flax plant only produces from 12 to 15 per cent, of paper pulp. All 
that I have said about flax is applicable to hemp, which produces 25 
per cent, of pulp, Nettles produce 5 per cent, of a very beautiful and 
easily-bleached fibre. Palm-leaves contain 30 to 40 per cent, fibre, but 
are not easily bleached. The Bromeliacece contain from 25 to 40 per 
cent, fibre. Bonapartea juncea contains 35 per cent, of the most 
beautiful vegetable fibre known ; it could not only be used for paper 
pulp, but for all kinds of manufactures in which flax, cotton, silk, or 
wool is employed. It appears that this plant exists in large quantities 
in Australia, and it is most desirable that some of our large manufac- 
turers should import a quantity of it. The plant wants no other 
preparation than cutting, drying, and compressing like hay. The 
bleaching and finishing may be done here. Ferns give 20 to 25 per 
cent, fibre, not easily bleached. Equisetum from 15 to 20 per cent, of 
inferior fibre, easily bleached. The inner bark of the lime-tree (Tilia) 
gives a fibre easily bleached but not very strong. Althcea and many 
malvacece produce from 15 to 20 per cent, paper pulp. Stalks of beans, 
peas, hops, buckwheat, potatoes, heather, broom, and many other plants 
contain from 10 to 20 per cent, of fibre, but their extraction and 
bleaching present difficulties which will, probably, prevent their use. 
The straws of the cereals cannot be converted into white-paper pulp, 
after they have ripened the grain : the joints or knots in the stalks are 
then so hardened that they will resist all bleaching agents. To produce 
paper pulp from them they must be cut green before the grain appears, 
and this would probably not be advantageous. Many grasses contain 
from 30 to 50 per cent, of fibre, not very strong, but easily bleached. 
Of indigenous grasses the rye -grass contains 35 per cent, of paper pulp ; 
Phalaris, Dactylis, and Carex, 30 per cent. Several reeds and canes con- 
tain from 30 to 50 per cent, of fibre easily bleached. The stalk of the 
sugar-cane gives 40 per cent, of white pulp. The wood of the Coniferce 
gives a fibre suitable for paper pulp. I made this discovery accidentally 
in 1851, when I was making flax-cotton in my model establishment at 
Stepney, near London. I remarked that the pine-wood vats in which 
I bleached were rapidly decomposed on the surface into a kind of paper 
pulp. I collected some of it, and exhibited it in the Great Exhibition ; 
but as, at that time, there was no want of paper material, no attention 
