WOOD PULP AND PAPIER MACHE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2051, 15 June 1893, Page 49

WOOD PULP AND PAPIER MACHE.

By Aparata Renata.

Wood has been used for many years for the manufacture of paper in China, but it is only -within the last 15 or 20 years that it has been used extensively by Europeans and Americans. The Americans are entitled to most of the credit duo to manufacturers for the immense strides that have taken place in the making of paper and papier mache out of wood. This is due principally to the great advantages their manufacturers had in having a suitable article growiDg naturally in the United States, in the shape of immense forests of American poplar, which is a nonresinous white wood, and therefore specially suited for the purpose of making a pulp that will do for the manufacturer to use for cheap house-papering or to mix with linen and esparto gras3 for ordinary writing and printing papers. In America and Norway and Sweden millions have been spent in plant for producing wood pulp alone, which is sold to paper manufacturers for the sum of £5 and upwards, according to quality, per ton. The vast quantity made, and the improved means of manufacturing the wood pulp, have caused common papers to fall in price during che past 20 years 50 per cent, and more. Another factor in this cheapening process is the improved means of making caustic soda from common salt, that product being one of the principal chemicals required in making wood pulp. So many articles that were once made of wood and iron are now made of wood pulp and papier mache that it would be impossible to mention them all. Furniture, door?, railway appliances, boats, roofing, fee,, are a few of them, and the day is not far distant when houses that ace required to be put up quickly and cheaply will be made of sheets of wood or papier mache. These houses would be fireproof, as sheets of the mache are not combustible. This advantage would make them very popular. These walls being so easily put up and so free from draughts would also tend to their popularity. That the day is not far distant when papier mache will be more generally used is certain, and our local manufacturers should be on the alerb about the best means for utilising our native woods for this purpose. That some of these woods are suitable I have ■ proved to the satisfaction of most people who have seen the samples of wood pulp and wood paper made by me without any ! machine. It is now eight or nine years since by a mere accident I thought the fibre of the moko-moko or currant tree (Aristotelia racemosa) would make excellent paper, and not knowing then to what extent wood pulp was used for paper-making, I was led to think that I had made an important discovery, and went to some trouble and expense in making sheets of paper by hand, to find out ultimately that the Americans had been in the field for some years. I was told by a well-known paper manufacturer that the palp I had made was worth £15 a ton before he knew it was produced from vrood. I believe the price of wood pulp landed here is from £6 to £8 per ton, and the wood can always be cut for 103 a ton, and it does not lose much weight in being converted into paper. This should leave the manufacturer plenty of margin for a profit on the manufactured article. This price refers to the moko-moko. Where the white birch is plentiful it could be cut for less. There is every reason to believe that many of our native tree 3 are suitable for the purpose basides the currant tree, although there is no question that the length of its flue, silky fibre makes the latter the aaost suitable. Another very encouraging quality about it is the facility with which^t can be cultivated, and the upeedy and luxuriant manner in which it takes possession of any piece of waste land, especially where the climate is at all damp. In some places it grows 2ft and even 3ft in a year till it attains a certain height. In old sawmill workings in the Tautuku forest it can be seen 15ft or 20ft high, and these workings were, not more than 15 or 20 years ago, nothing but tall red pines, with hardly a currant tree to an acre, and now there is one in every three or four square feet or less. Presuming it would pay to plant ground near a paper pulp mill with them, they could be planted 2ft or 3ft apart, and would form a dense jungle in a few years. But it would be quite unnecessary for a manufacturer starting a wood paper pulp mill anywhere about the Oatlins district to trust to a future tupply by planting, as there are tens of thousands of acres in shady or southern aspects about Oatlins where the currant tree predominate?, and there are also thousands of acres of silver beech or birch trees there.

It has often been suggested that our native flax would make most admirable paper, and this is quite true ; but when the cost of flax fibre is £15 or £18 per ton, and wood is to be had for 10s, it is quite clear that flax fibre is far too expensive for cheap papers, and it is very questionable whether it is not

too dear for manufacturing even the very finest paper that it is possible to make. Of course the question of cheap caustic soda has to be taken into consideration. But there is no doubt that it could be made locally and cheaply if there was any great demand for it.

It will be seen from what I have written that there is something to be made out of our waste woods and timbers, and I hope manufacturers and others interested will take sufficient interest in the subject to keep the manufacturing of wood pulp for paper and other purposes in view till an opportunity occurs for entering into it practically. I hope to live to see a manufactory started, and then I shall feel proud of having contributed my mite towards that end.