Bamboo, Considered as a Paper-making Material / With remarks upon its cultivation and treatment. Supplemented by a consideration of the present position of the paper trade in relation to the supply of raw material.

by Thomas Routledge

THE PRESENT POSITION OF THE PAPER TRADE IN RELATION TO THE SUPPLY OF RAW MATERIAL.

"The deficient supply of, and the increasing price for, the materials for making paper and the prospect of a still greater consumption has for some time excited the attention of manufacturers and the public."

The above Remarks prefacing a Memorandum drawn up by Dr. Forbes Royle, reporting for "The Commissioners for the Affairs of India," at the desire of "The Lords of Her Majesty's Treasury," and of "The Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council for Trade," in 1854, and subsequently published in his valuable work, "The Fibrous Plants of India," in 1855—twenty years ago—truly represent the position of the Paper-Trade at the present time.

The extension of education and literature, the necessity for cheap newspapers and serial publications, the increased demand for paper for writing, as also for manufacturing and commercial purposes generally, have greatly stimulated consumption, and it is believed that since the abolition of the Excise duty in 1861, the annual production of paper has more than doubled.

Previous to 1861, raw fibrous material, with the exception perhaps of Straw, was but little used in paper-making, the waste of cotton, flax, hemp, and jute mills, having undergone a process of semi-manufacture, being comprised under the generic term of—Rags.

The American war, immediately following the repeal of the paper duty, threatening a cotton famine, the Paper-makers gladly availed themselves of a new material, "Esparto," which I had for some time previously been ineffectually endeavouring to introduce, and adopting my process for its treatment, this material entered speedily into consumption, and has tended more than anything else to promote the development of the Paper-trade by enabling the manufacturers to keep pace with the rapidly increasing demand.

The importations of "Esparto," which did not amount to 1000 tons in the year 1860 (indeed up to that date I was the only manufacturer using it[A]), rose to upwards of 50,000 tons in the year 1865, and by 1871—ten years only from its introduction—the annual imports had attained the large total of 140,000 tons.

"Esparto" being a wild grass (or, botanically speaking, a sedge) growing on waste lands, in Spain and Africa, owing to the greed of the native collectors—who, while gathering the plant, pluck it up recklessly, roots and all—is being gradually but surely exterminated.

The complete exhaustion of the plant is proceeding very rapidly in Spain; and as it is estimated by the best informed authorities that it will take, even with the greatest care and under the most favourable conditions, at least fifteen years to reproduce it from seed (a system not very likely to be pursued in that country,) at no very remote period this valuable paper-making material appears doomed to extinction.

During the last few years a large and increasing supply of "Esparto," or as it is there called "Alfa," has been received from Africa; and although the quality of African Esparto is not valued by the paper-trade as high as the Spanish, still it meets with a ready sale, being used to mix with, or in substitution of the latter.

As much as 60,000 tons were imported last year (1874) from Algeria, and great inducements by concessions and otherwise, are offered by the French Government to induce railway communication with the interior districts of that country, where the plant is said to abound on some of the mountainous plateaux, and thus for some little time the market may be supplied, but the difficulty of procuring labour, and the cost of railway carriage for such long distances, will add considerably to the present charges of transit to this country.

Within the last two or three years, the Belgian and American Paper-makers have commenced using "Esparto," and so latterly have the French, and as our main sources of supply will now be Algeria, (a French colony,) any material reduction in prices can hardly be looked for.

"Esparto," like other commercial products, is amenable to the law of supply and demand; and thus, as the demand is, and is likely to continue in excess of the supply, its cost has enormously increased, the price it now commands in the market being nearly double that, at which I sold many thousand tons during the early years of its introduction.

The Paper-manufacturers are thus again experiencing the same difficulty recognized by The Lords of the Treasury, and by The Board of Trade in 1854, and which more recently was considered of sufficient importance to induce the appointment of a Select Committee ordered by The House of Commons in 1861:

"To inquire into the Duties or Prohibitions in Foreign Countries on the Export of Rags used in the Manufacture of Paper in the United Kingdom, and their effect upon that Manufacture."

The Committee reported: "That the production of paper in this country is in excess of the supply of the material of which it is made, and the paper manufacture is in consequence dependent for a large portion of its supplies on foreign Rags, amounting to about 15,000 tons per annum, which is by estimation a fifth of the whole quantity of Rags used for the manufacture of white paper in this country, on nearly the whole of which heavy export duties are paid."

Another paragraph of the Committee's "Report" states: "That the Committee have directed their especial attention to inquiring as to the possibility of applying any New Fibre as a substitute for the refuse material now in use for Paper-making purposes, and find that great efforts have been made to discover some material of this nature, but as yet with little success; and although they see no reason to doubt that Straw and other fibrous substances may form a supplementary part of the material for paper-making, the great comparative expense of chemically reducing these Raw Fibres presents difficulties to their becoming a substitute for the refuse material now used."

Since the above "Report" was published, the position of the Trade has materially altered. The export duties in some countries have been abolished, in others reduced; Rag material has increased in quantity and diminished in price; "the difficulties of chemically reducing Raw Fibres" no longer exist; and the "15,000 tons of Rags" estimated by the "Committee" as the requirements of the Trade have been more than "substituted" by the 150,000 tons of "Esparto" and other Raw material, now annually imported, while the development of the chemical trade keeping pace with the introduction of "Raw Fibres" has materially facilitated their employment.

Caustic soda, but little known in 1861, is now extensively manufactured, and Weldon's new process has greatly increased the power of production and diminished the cost of manufacturing bleaching powder; thus "the comparative expense of chemically reducing Raw Fibres" is no longer an obstacle to progress.

The manufacturer of the present day will, in fact, undertake to make paper from any raw fibre, or fibrous substance that may be submitted to him.

He has, however, several questions to consider before he will commit himself to purchase or contract for any new fibrous material, these being: its cost, not merely as a raw material, but in the details of manufacture, and the quality of the paper that can economically be made from such fibre, either alone, or introducing it as a blend with the material he at present employs; then, assuming these points satisfactorily determined, he would desire to know the quantity of such material annually available, with some guarantee for continuous and reliable supply at a price not liable to erratic fluctuations.

The value of "Esparto" as a Paper-making material having been recognized, and its employment almost universally adopted in the Trade, naturally led to various attempts to introduce other "new material," which hitherto, however, have met with only partial success: the "Dwarf Palm," Chamœrops humilis, and "Diss," as well as some other materials from North Africa, have been tried and abandoned as unsuitable: "Jute" also has latterly attracted considerable attention; "Butts" or "Cuttings," as they are termed, the refuse from the preparation of the long clean fibre now so largely used as a Textile, have entered extensively into consumption, being imported from India specially for paper-makers' use, packed in hydraulic-pressed bales; but this fibre is difficult and costly to bleach perfectly, and is only employed for the lower class of "News" and "Common printing," or unbleached, for "Brown" and "Wrapping" papers; but as it has long been familiar to the trade in the form of Waste, Gunny-bagging, and Rope, it can hardly be termed a "New Material."

Two or three other excellent fibrous materials may be mentioned, small parcels of which are occasionally to be met with, that are, or more correctly speaking would be, much prized by Paper-manufacturers if obtainable at reasonable rates, such as "Adansonia Bark," "New Zealand Flax," "Manilla Hemp," "Sunn," and other Indian, Hemp-like Fibres, all of which will bleach well and make paper of superior quality; but unfortunately the quantity available is so small, and the supply so irregular and uncertain, that they can hardly be relied upon as "Raw Material."

"Wood," both chemically and mechanically prepared, has been, and indeed is now, used to a very considerable extent; but the latter, produced by grinding down "billets" from the tree as cut down, on a grindstone to a pulp, with water, or without water, to the condition of flour, contains but little fibre, and that fibre with very little "felting" property (an essential for a good sheet of paper); thus it can only be used as a "filler-up" for "cheap News" and common papers, like "clay" (facetiously called in the trade Devonshire linen), or any other adulterant which the necessities of the Paper-maker, to meet the market, (or in other words deficient supply of good and cheap suitable material) compel him to use.

"Wood," chemically prepared, is costly in production, as it is only possible to reduce it into Pulp, by boiling under very high pressure, with strong caustic alkali; several mills established both in England and Scotland, to carry out this manufacture, have abandoned it, and such Pulp as is now used in the Trade is derived exclusively from the countries where the wood is grown. The Pulp thus produced, although somewhat hard and harsh, if the wood is carefully selected, and properly prepared, will, blended with other material, produce a fair quality of paper.

The use of "Straw," from the "Cereals," Wheat, Oats, and Rye, has of late years greatly extended, both in this country and throughout the continent of Europe, as well as in the United States of America, either alone or as an admixture with rags and other material, for all classes of paper, as these countries equally with England suffer from a deficient supply of Raw Material; but in England, owing to the increased consumption for agricultural and feeding purposes, and influenced also by the scarcity and high prices lately ruling for "Esparto" in many districts, "Straw" has become very difficult to obtain, and considerable quantities have in consequence been imported from Holland and Belgium, both raw, and as bleached Pulp.

I may here mention two other fibrous substances, which have from time to time attracted considerable attention, viz. "Maize Leaves" and "Rice Straw," both of them raw materials, from which a fair quality of paper is produced in the countries where these plants are cultivated; but, as in their natural condition after being harvested they are far too bulky to permit of transport to this country, they would have to be reduced to a portable form where they grow, and even then, owing to the small yield of "true fibre," their economical conversion is somewhat doubtful, unless under favourable conditions.

The daily increasing demand for Paper being recognized, and the impending if not immediate scarcity of Raw Material available for its manufacture, up to the present time, having been shown, to what quarter must the Trade look for an extended supply?

This it must be admitted has become an important question for consideration, it being evident that unless some "New Material" suitable for the purpose is speedily introduced, the "Paper Trade," one of the most important in the United Kingdom, will be seriously crippled; meanwhile of necessity high prices are maintained, and as a natural consequence the consumer suffers.

Fibre-producing Plants—Sources of Supply.

The high value of land precludes the cultivation of any fibrous material exclusively for paper-making in England, even if this climate was suitable for its growth; with the exception indeed of "Flax" and "Hemp," it would appear that northern latitudes are not favourable for the production of fibre-producing plants, and therefore it is to warm or tropical countries alone any reliable supply of "New Material" can be looked for.

In the East, and West Indies, in her Colonies and Dependencies, England possesses an inexhaustible supply of fibre-producing plants; in India especially, almost every plant abounds more or less in fibre.

In China and Japan, as also in India, from the earliest times, paper has been made exclusively from raw indigenous virgin fibres, and the paper produced in these countries is in consequence generally extremely strong and tough, and although unbleached, and not made in a fashion adapted to European requirements, affords ample and conclusive evidence of the valuable supply of material at our disposal.

Vegetable Fibrous, or Fibre-producing Plants, are divided by Botanists into two distinct Classes or Divisions: Endogens, or inside growers; Exogens, or outside growers.

From the former are obtained the fibres known as "Manilla Hemp" or "Abaca" (from the Musa textilis or Plantain), the "Aloe," "Agavé" (or "Pita Fibre"), the "Yucca," "Bromelia penguin," "Sisal Hemp" (or Hannequin); "Pina Fibre" from the "Pine Apple" (Ananassa sativa), "Marool or Moorva" (Sanseveira Zeylanica), "New Zealand Flax" (Phormium tenax), &c.; "Maize" (or Indian Corn), "Rice," and other "Cereal Straws," "Esparto," "Diss," and various "Sedges," "Reeds," and "Grasses," the latter including "Bamboo," and "Sugar Cane," are also comprised in this Class.

The Fibres, or Fibrous Tissue enveloping the Stems of Herbaceous Plants, known as "Hemp," "Flax," "Jute," "Hibiscus," (Gombo or Okhro), "Rhea," or "China-Grass" (Urtica nivea), "Sunn Hemp" (Cratolaria juncea), &c., as also the Lace Barks (so called), such as the "Adansonia digitatas" (from the Baobab tree), the "Nepal Paper Plant" (Daphne cannabina), the "Paper Mulberry" (Broussonetia papyrifera), &c., constitute the latter Class.

I have confined myself to recapitulating a few only of the fibres in either class, best known to commerce; this list, indeed, might be extended almost indefinitely, as may be seen by reference to the work before alluded to, 'The Fibrous Plants of India,' by Dr. Forbes Royle, as also to the elaborate Paper on the same subject, read at the meeting of the Society of Arts, May 9, 1860, by Dr. J. Forbes Watson, Reporter on the Products of India, Dr. Royle's able successor.

With some few exceptions (notably "Esparto" and some of the Cereal straws and grasses), the resulting or ultimate fibres from vegetable fibrous plants, before they can be utilized either for Textile purposes, or for the manufacture of Paper, must be freed from the extraneous substances with which during their growth they are more or less combined.

In the case of Endogens, the fibres are imbedded or enveloped in succulent, fleshy, or pulpy stems, or leaves; and in the case of Exogens, the fibre is combined with, and attaching to, wood, or woody matter, such extraneous substances or matters constituting, more or less, a considerable portion both of the weight and bulk of the plant even when matured.