SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
5,000 acres will be planted during next season. The development of this 
industry is directly due to the work of the Institute of Science and 
Industry, and the inerease in wealth already produced would pay several 
times over for the total cost of the Institute. 
BAGASSE AS A RAW MATERIAL FOR PAPER PULP. 
The possibilities of utilising bagasse, which is the waste material 
from sugar mills, was investigated in England by Thomas Routledge as 
far back as 1856. Previous to that time linen and cotton rags were 
about the only known material for book and writing papers. Mr. 
Routledge’s experiments were carried on in an open vomiting boiler by 
cooking with caustic soda, and he was successful in producing high grade 
papers from the material. On account of the facility of collecting 
esparto grass by cheap labour in Morocco, it was decided to utilise 
esparto in the manufacture of high grade book-printing papers which 
could have been produced. from bagasse if the commercial conditions 
had been more favorable. Esparto has recently become much more 
expensive, owing mainly to increased labour costs in collection, and the 
time may not be far distant when, by proper preliminary treatment, 
bagasse fibre may supplant esparto and become commercially practicable 
_in locations where the conditions are favorable. : 
From time to time various experiments with bagasse have been 
carried out in the United States of America. A number of patents 
have been issued for methods of treatment, but they are of doubtful 
value, since bagasse can be treated by the ordinary methods such as are 
used in the manufacture of esparto papers. ‘The whole question 
appears to hinge on the conditions of the sugar industry. Sugar mills 
generally produce large quantities of bagasse for a few months of the 
year, while for the balance of the year they are shut down. Bagasse 
deteriorates rapidly when stored in air, and it would not be practicable 
to establish a pulping plant except for practically continuous opera- 
tion throughout the year. From the sugar miller’s stand-point, it is 
evident that he must sell his bagasse at a price high enough to replace 
it with other fuel to advantage. 
The problem of supplying bagasse to a continuously operating pulp- 
ing plant from an intermittently operating sugar mill involves treating 
the bagasse at the sugar mill in such a manner that it can be stored 
without deterioration during the period sugar mills are idle. This 
is the most important problem in the bagasse situation, and it must be 
satisfactorily solved before bagasse can be used commercially in a 
pulp-manufacturing plant. Experiments on_ this problem have 
recently been carried out in England by Messrs. Joseph H. Wallace 
and Company, and it is stated that the results are, so far, promising. 
IMPERIAL. ENTOMOLOGICAL CONFERENCE. 
The Commonwealth Government haye received from the Colonial 
Office a letter stating that an Imperial Entomological Conference is to 
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