Paper Manufacture

Horowhenua Chronicle, 28 November 1916, Page 2

Paper Manufacture

J3XTEXSIVE INDUSTRY IX valley. (From London Tinlfes.) The in a mil at tu re of paper for business and commercial uses is ail intensely rn'tereisting industry in which the district known as the Wycombe Valley lias played an important part for many pear past. Until thy middle of the last century paper-ina.king was largely carried out c.u what i.s kn t.wn as the Hand Process, and the bulk of the materials used con.-c'stedi of rags, which were reduced to pulp through the medium of beating engines. Such sources of raw material became quite insufficient to supply modern demands, and various kinds of oilier material were in-troduce.!--'including straw, rushes an.l Eisparto grass— and used! with more or less succcss• while at the present time the great bulk of all common paper is made from wood fibre, and whole forests have been and are being cut to cope with the world's requirements. FACILITIES OFFEBED AT WYCOMBE. 4 In the manufacture of paper, especially of white and superior qualities the character of the water ussd lias been of the utmost importance, and the purity of the chalk streams has much to do with the establishment in tlie Wycombe Valley, and in the Valley of the Chess of the large number of paper mills which flouaiisli there. Jn the ycombe Valley where tlu river Wrick, or Wye, falls rapidly from West Wyc-omba to the Thanvrs, a distance of 7i miles, with a total fa'H of about 100 ft., there were 50 years ago no less than 22 paper mills. Although this number lias been slightly reduced) in the intervening peiiod there is now a large and lucratve paper manufacturing 1 industry which finds employment for many hundreds of hands. Many of tl'e largest paper mills in Kent and elsewhere had their origin in the Wycombe Valley. Nowadays facilites for getting coal, transft andT labour iiavo superseded any advantage which the chalk water previously conferred for the manufacture of the commodity. Of the paper mills mi the Wycombe Valley one turns out hSgh-class writing and ,I'tfdgflr papers. In another, by means of elaborate modern machinery, an enormous quantity of hiighly-glazed ' paper, as used for monthly magazines, is manufactured. One paper mjill on the stream is . identified with the highest and most successful stocks of blotting paper. Board mills have in later years contributed to the increasing industry, and with American and other machinery' of the latest type these particular mills are "being successfully worked.

MANUFACTURE OF BLOTTING PAPER, Wotting paper is typically a Wycombe Valley product, and at tlie present tlime immense- quantities are being exported to the dominions and India, to France, Russia, Denmark, Denmark, Norway, Italy and South America. Its world-wide reputation is evident. Curiously enough, blotting paper is .supposed; to have been discovered by accident; some workmen omitted the essential ingredients during their manipulations and the result was th© output of a quantity of what was regarded as waste. The hand-made paper of ' to-day, which is produced) in comparatively small quantities is still superior to the machine-produced material for legal, accountancy, and other work. There is, however, a machine-made paper, introduced from an Italian source, now in operation which none but highly qualified experts can distinguish from 'real hand-made paper.