Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 90.djvu/289

 Will We Dress in Paper Clothes?

They make socks, chairs and twine out of paper now, and you can't tell the difference between them and the usual product

��IX the good old days of plenty, how lav- ishly we used that imposing natural resource of ours, the great American forests. We cut down tree after tree without taking the slightest measures for replanting them. When we floated the trees to our saw mills we cut one-third of them into lumber and we threw the rest awa^'. But finally, when we could not help but see that our forests were nearing depletion, we estab- lished the Forest Serv- ice to determine what could be done! And ever since that time we have learned a host of amaz- ing things about lum- ber and the uses of lum- ber waste. But who would have expected as a result that some day we would be mak- ing such things as arti- ficial silks from such materials as sawdust? Yet that is exactly what is being done. Lumber waste that was once considered worthless is

���These interesting articles were all made from wood pulp. They represent all varieties and grades of paper "silk"

���A comfortable couch for the veranda or the summer cottage. It is made from spun paper reeds woven over a rattan and wood frame. It is as durable as it is attractive

273

��now mixed with small quantities of wood pulp, made into paper, some- times mixed with cotton or woolen fleece, and then spun into "cilk" neckties and "silk" socks. And, as the ac- companying photo- graphs amply show, these are not the only commodities that are being so made with suc- cess. " It is already a matter of economy to manufacture articles from spun paper which range in diversity from furniture and rugs to suitcases and flour bags. Equally as interest- ing is Jihe manner in which the paper is spun into twine and into thread. In a process for making twine, the paper is first cut into long strips about one inch wide. These strips are then passed through a machine which corru- gates them in the direc- tion of their lengths. These are then twisted by hand into the shape of twine, as the illus- tration shows. The twine is finally reduced to the proper diameter by feeding it into other machines which wind the thread up very tightly. A process of this kind is used for making the larger size twines and ropes, and for heavy cables for towing ships.

For spinning the fine twines that are used for wrapping bun- dles and for binding har\'ested grain, a slightly different method is used. Narrow strips of the paper are wound up in the form of a disk. The inner edge of the

��paper disk is then pulled out, and

�� �