p. 25 | CACTUS PAPER

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 27, 1876

CACTUS PAPER.

Dr. Babb writes to the Herald and Presbyter:—

“In California there are mountains covered with cactus—thousands of acres that even the goats avoid, so dense are these vegetable porcupines. The cactus deserts have been regarded as worthless. But we are learning not to judge hastily that any thing is worthless that God has made. Capt. Walker, of Soledad, has just started a ninety horse-power engine, crushing cactus into pulp for making paper. He sends twenty tons of this prepared fiber every week to George W. Childs, of Philadelphia, the publisher of the Daily Ledger in that city. Mr. Childs has a paper mill of his own, and will use the cactus pulp from the deserts of the Pacific slope instead of straw. Hitherto, California has imported nearly all of its paper from the East. But this discovery will lead to the erection of paper mills here, and the production of paper so cheaply that it will bear shipment to the Atlantic Coast. The supply of cactus in our mountains is almost unlimited, and probably its use may even reduce the price of paper in the markets of the world.”

“Such facts are interesting in themselves. The idea that the wild, almost untrodden slopes of the Pacific are to furnish the material on which books and newspapers are to be printed—that intelligence, genius and learning are to depend for their diffusion upon the desert thistles which are regarded as a pest, is startling. But it suggests the question—What next?”