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cultivated with us, cutting down the young shoots in December, after the 
leaves are fallen. 
These being divided into rods of three feet in length, or shorter, are 
gathered into bundles to be boiled. If the shoots are dry, they must be 
softened in water twenty Tour hours. The bundles are boiled very close 
together, and placed erect in a large copper properly closed: the boiling is 
continued till the separation of the bark displays the naked wood. Then 
the stalks are loosed out of the bundles, and allowed to cool; after which, 
by a longitudinal incision, the bark is stripped off, and dried, the wood being 
rejected. When this bark is to be purified, it is put three or four hours in 
water, when being sufficiently softened, the cuticle, which is of a dark colour, 
together with the greenish surface of the inner bark, is pared off. At the 
same time the stronger bark is separated from the more tender; the former 
making the whitest and best paper; the latter a dark weak and inferior 
kind. If any bark appears that is old, it is set aside for a thicker paper, of 
worse quality. Into this last class they throw the knotty parts of the bark, 
and those which have any fault or blemish. 
The bark is now boiled in a lye that is clear and strained; care being 
taken to stir the substance as soon as it begins to boil, with a strong reed, 
and to pour in of the lye gradually as much as is necessary for stopping the 
evaporation, and restoring the liquid that is lost. 
The boiling is to cease when the materials can be split, by a slight touch 
of the finger, into fibres and down. 
Next it is to be washed, which is a thing of some moment; for if washed 
too short a time, the paper will be strong indeed, but too rough, and of an 
inferior quality: if too long, it will be whiter, but of a fat consistence, lax, 
and less fit for writing. Being sufficiently washed, the materials are put 
upon a thick, smooth, wooden table, and stoutly beat, by two or three men, 
with battons of hard wood, into a pulp ; which being put in water, separates 
like grains of meal. Thus prepared, it is put into a narrow vat; an infusion 
of Rice, and a mucous water of the infusion of the root of Manihot being 
added to it. These three are to be stirred with a clean slender reed, till 
reduced into a homogeneous liquor, of a due consistence. The prepared 
liquor is now put into a larger vat; from whence the sheets are poured out 
one by one, and placed in heaps upon a table covered with a double mat; 
a small thread of reed being placed between the sheets at the edge, and 
5 S 
