PAPER FROM BAMBOO

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 23, 27 January 1923, Page 12

PAPER FROM BAMBOO

A CHINESE INDUSTRY.

;;;,•;;; Paper has; been manufactured in China .iJeince -Che beginning of the Christian era, ..;J,writes H. K. Richardson in ." Chemical "'/and Metallurgical Engineering." Paper " : money is mentioned in the history of .-■Szechuan as early as A.D. 960. To-day ;'^this industry is carried on in much the --/same way as it has been for the past ten i Many different kinds ot .:" paper are made in the western provinces : , -of Szechiian and Kweiohow, of which ;;- 'four are of particular interest. These '.'iy-are:—. ■ • ■*■-; 1. Kou pi chili, or bark paper, which "■; -is made from the paper mulberry, pro- ,? -bably the original paper made in China; :.;,•:,; 2. Rice . paper,, so .. called, which is ■^sliced from a pith., "Z'i, 3. Ts'ao chili, or coarse paper, made J,' Jfrom rice straw or reeds. :*"•; 4.; Chu chih, or bamboo paper, made '■•from young bamboo trees. I'; 1.:.; Each of these papers is' madd by a '" u ".;method more or less distinctive^ but chu • -•'^chih is the most interesting. The best l-'/i'paper produced in Szechuan. is ■ made I^jirom bamboos by a process said to be *""Wer ten centuries old. 1 More than thirty ■-'- of bamboo 'grow in Western

i-, [China, of which only two are commonly I'^sed "4or"paper;making. '.These' are tzii ~-:-:chu or spiny bamboo, bambusa arundi- , ' '-" and ch'ung.chu or grove bamboo, .'™;)phyllostaclys heteroclada. The second is —'-'used by most paper-makers. This variety Xvgrows to a height of 161:dr 18 "feet, and'is

■ '.'3-i to 2 inches in diameter. It grows ■v";to the full height in about two months, «Sinaked of leaves. When the full ;'2is attained leaves spring oufj at each ■v:joint, which roughly represent, each '■'•'day's growth. Most Chinese paper..;,,.;makers prefer, to. use the young culms "/'before this leafing-out occurs, for they '"i-say the Jeafing-out process hardens the -A*. IJiodes and makes them difficult to reduce *)* 'by the usual retting process. The proused to turn this bamboo into paper ';'.t|varies ''a, 'little in fthe different parts £;TDf the province. .';.'".' :