Horobi no Kuni no Seifukusha - Ch. 21 - New Business

[MangaDex]

 

[Kaarme]

The witch families apparently have been killing innovation so far. It will indeed be natural selection for them to see if they can adapt to a new era. Perhaps the queen saw the potential in this to get rid of the curse of the witch families. That being said, those witches should be wealthy and they also should have plenty of skilled workers (who can do all the copying of other people's innovations), so nothing actually prevents them from acquiring their own patents if they really try. They would have the financies to fund R&D.

Paper industry is fitting for that pseudo-Nordic region, that's for sure.

 

[outinthegardener]

Catholica, Witches, get ready to antagonize. Finally reaching the part of the story where Yuuri's actions catch attention from the greater world. Let's goooo.

 

[nobody2002]

Is he going to invest the printing press next? 😆

 

[morichiro]

It begins!!! LET'S GOOOOO

 

[DanYHKim]

Is he going to invest the printing press next? 😆

That's a good point. Without abundant paper, mass printing is pretty much a solution without a problem. Parchment is hard to make.

I am not happy that he's looking at wood pulp to make paper. That's a difficult fiber to obtain, with a whole technology of its own. People who are fans of hemp go on about how that is a fiber that is more suited for paper production than wood pulp, being in a softer matrix for easier extraction, and with much less lignin so it requires less bleaching. But historically paper was made from cotton rags as the source of fiber. His experiment using lint from spinning houses, which is possibly at the cottage industry stage at that point in industrial development, might be promising but for the lack of centralization and volume of product.

I wonder if flax produces a fine enough lint for papermaking? Extracting fiber for linen is a process that results in considerable loss of broken fibers through removal of the pith of the stalks and combing out the fibers to get long staple flax. Short, tangled fibers are also recovered, called "tow", but these are used profitably for less fine spinning and rope making, but I am sure that even shorter fibers are discarded as lint. But they might lack the fine flexibility needed for paper.

There's a book on the history of paper by the name "Paper: Paging Through History", by Mark Kurlansky that is quite fascinating.

 

[nobody2002]

That's a good point. Without abundant paper, mass printing is pretty much a solution without a problem. Parchment is hard to make.

I am not happy that he's looking at wood pulp to make paper. That's a difficult fiber to obtain, with a whole technology of its own. People who are fans of hemp go on about how that is a fiber that is more suited for paper production than wood pulp, being in a softer matrix for easier extraction, and with much less lignin so it requires less bleaching. But historically paper was made from cotton rags as the source of fiber. His experiment using lint from spinning houses, which is possibly at the cottage industry stage at that point in industrial development, might be promising but for the lack of centralization and volume of product.

I wonder if flax produces a fine enough lint for papermaking? Extracting fiber for linen is a process that results in considerable loss of broken fibers through removal of the pith of the stalks and combing out the fibers to get long staple flax. Short, tangled fibers are also recovered, called "tow", but these are used profitably for less fine spinning and rope making, but I am sure that even shorter fibers are discarded as lint. But they might lack the fine flexibility needed for paper.

There's a book on the history of paper by the name "Paper: Paging Through History", by Mark Kurlansky that is quite fascinating.

That's a lot of information about manufacturing paper. 😅