412 THE COTTAGE GARDENER. August 29. 
1 know is unexceptionable in every particular. Yet, the 
manufacturer makes no effort to remove this incubus 
from literature. Why is this?—and the answer is now 
i passing our office window in the form of a man about 
fifty years of age, wearing afustain coat, broad brimmed 
hat, with an ink-horn hanging from his button, and a 
bunch of warehouse keys in his hand. He is the district 
exciseman—the Torpedo of every manufacture he is 
legalized to visit. 
We have said that we know of a material unex¬ 
ceptionable in every particular for the cheap manu¬ 
facture of good paper. To be deserving of such a 
character it must bo as tough as flax, readily bleached, 
easily reduced to a pulp, and very cheap. Such a 
'material is afforded by The Common Nettle (Urtica 
clioica)'. , 
We have before us specimens of this dreaded weed 
nearly four feot high. We have seen fibres of it bleached 
as white as ever flax was bleached, and those fibres bore 
weights which broke fibres of flax. We have seen a 
pulp made from those nettle fibres, that no paper- 
maker could distinguish from a pulp made from the 
best linen rags. Why, then, has it not been made into 
paper? The answer has been already pourtrayed. The 
Torpedo is in the way. 
The exciseman benumbs the energy of the paper- 
manufacturer. Duties being claimed, penalties inflicted, 
supervisions required in modes and with a stringency 
that no manufacture is willing to risk; for if the ex¬ 
periment failed there would be no remission of duties; 
and the hindrances and interferences attendant upon 
such experiments are too embarassing to be endured 
without an imperative necessity. There is no such 
necessity on the paper-maker, for if the public cannot 
afford to pay for good paper, they must put up with 
that of a lower quality, and this the manufacturer can 
still supply without any risks. 
Turning our attention to the only remaining im¬ 
portant consideration in the production of Nettle fibre— 
lowness of price—there is no doubt it cau be supplied 
far cheaper than any other material of equal excellence. 
No cultivation of the plaut is required, and it may be 
grown in places that will produce nothing else but its 
brethren in neglect, the Dock and the Plantain. We 
have seen it growing luxuriantly in masses, on that 
example of desolation and barrenness—Brandon Rabbit 
Warren — so well characterised by Miss Edgeworth, 
when she said that she saw nothing living there except 
two rabbits, and they were fighting for a blade of grass ! 
Four times in the year, at the least, may the nettle be 
reaped, and the aggregate weight would double that of 
flax from a similar space of grouud. 
Attention was turned to the Nettle as a plant yielding 
a material for paper from the intimation that for ages 
its fibres have been used in some parts of the west of 
! England, we believe in Somersetshire, for making a 
i thread, of which a cloth for carmen’s frocks is made. 
; This is a coarse and dark fabric, but we are informed, 
1 also, that as long since as 1702, a manufacturer of 
Leipsic made from Nettle fibres a superior and white 
thread. “ This manufacturer having read in Robinson 
that he had made ropes and even stuff of Nettles, was 
tempted to verify the facts, and a great quantity of the 
stalks still green, though half withered, were dried over 
a stove, and when the moisture was nearly all driven 
off, he bruised them so as to be able to separate tbo 
wood from the bark. By this process he procured a 
kind of green hards, which were rubbed and prepared 
like flax. This being spun, he obtained a greenish-brown 
thread, very uniform and clear, something resembling 
worsted. This thread he afterwards boiled, when it 
yielded a greenish juice, and became more white, uni¬ 
form, and strong, so that by continuing tbe preparation, 
it is to be hoped that an excellent thread may be made, 
and, consequently, a strong and lasting cloth.” — 
(Annual Register, 1760, p. 124.) 
Such hope we know has been realised, and Dr. 
Martyn goes a step further, for he says—“ The stalk of 
the Nettle is found to have a texture somewhat like that 
of Hemp, and to be capable of being manufactured into 
cloth, ropes, and paper." The paper to which he thus 
briefly alludes was probably coarse and dark-coloured, 
but better bleaching and more careful preparation we 
know has succeeded in producing from the Nettle fibre 
a superior paper pulp. 
We trust that if the excise duty cannot be taken off 
papor, yet that the official regulations may be relaxed, 
and every facility given to the enterprising manufac¬ 
turer who may be willing to try experiments to improve 
the quality of cheap paper. Such a relaxation of fiscal 
rules, and such encouragement are expected at the 
hands of the statesmen who have struggled consistently, 
firmly, and successfully, for the diffusion of education 
and useful information among the poorer classes. Let 
us hope, also, that if those facilities are given, that the 
paper - manufacturers will not be backward in their 
efforts to produce a cheap, good paper. That it is to 
their interest so to do, needs no other suggestion than 
that many periodicals, as we have already noted, will 
cease to be published, if a cheaper suitable paper 
cannot be produced than is at present purchasable. 
“The Dorsetshire Association for the improvement of 
Domestic Poultry,” proposes to hold its next exhibition 
at Dorchester, on the 27th and 28th of September next. 
An alteration, we observe, has been made by this 
society in the usual form of the prize list, for a dis¬ 
tinction has been drawn between “ rules” and “ regula¬ 
tions,” the former being regarded as affecting the details 
of the constitution of the society, while the latter are 
restricted to the particulars of the exhibition itself. 
Such an arrangement, as' it may tend to simplify the 
information on which the exhibitors must act, will, 
probably, be imitated in other instances, although there 
are certainly some points to which it may be difficult to 
assign their exact position from their referring more or 
less to both of these heads. 
Various pieces of plate are to be given by the noble¬ 
men and gentlemen residing in Dorsetshire, to the 
