Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/129

 Making Paper and Cord from Marsh Grasses

��Thousands of acres of hitherto worthless marshy land can be made to yield millions of dollars' worth of fiber and pulp for various uses

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�� ��One million acres of this marshy land, overgrown with sedges and grasses, lie south of Savannah, Georgia. It will readily yield from one to two tons of fine dry pulp per acre

��WHEN Pharaoh's daughter came across the baby Moses hidden among the bulrushes of the River Nile some three thousand years ago, he was tucked comfortably in a miniature ship made of sedges. In those days the common sedges growing in Egyptian marshes were used for cordage, mattings, sails and curtains, and the ancient vessels of bulrushes were made by binding and sewing them with the filaments of corded sedge.

To-day several large industries are facing a serious shortage in paper pulp, oakum, yarns, twine and kindred prod- ucts. A decreasing supply of jute from India, sisal from Mexico, and Manila from the Philippines has sent prices skyward, and many manufacturers and publishers have been unable to stand the pinch and have failed. Were the paper and cordage

��producers as wise as Pharaoh's daughter and would they but go to the marshes for their future supply of raw material, they would find a sufficient quantity of fibers to meet the country's needs. We have been so busy since Pharaoh's time that we have forgotten all about our marsh sedges.

There are thousands — perhaps hun- dreds of thousands — of acres of marshy land which, from the standpoint of useful- ness, might form one of the country's vast natural resources. Consider New Jersey and her marshes, the Virginia and North Carolina swamps and tidal dis- tricts, and the innumerable lakes with their fringes of rushes and sedges! If the ancient Egyptians made use of this raw material, why should not we of this age?

Thanks to the thirteen years of study and experimentation made by Col. R. A.

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