The American war, immediately following the repeal of the paper duty, threatening a cotton famine, the Paper-makers gladly availed themselves of a new material, "Esparto," which I had for some time previously been ineffectually endeavouring to introduce, and adopting my process for its treatment, this material entered speedily into consumption, and has tended more than anything else to promote the development of the Paper-trade by enabling the manufacturers to keep pace with the rapidly increasing demand. The importations of "ESPARTO," which did not amount to 1000 tons in the year 1860 (indeed up to that date I was the only manufacturer using it[A]), rose to upwards of 50,000 tons in the year 1865, and by 1871--ten years only from its introduction--the annual imports had attained the large total of 140,000 tons. "ESPARTO" being a wild grass (or, botanically speaking, a sedge) growing on waste lands, in Spain and Africa, owing to the greed of the native collectors--who, while gathering the plant, pluck it up recklessly, roots and all--is being gradually but surely exterminated. The complete exhaustion of the plant is proceeding very rapidly in Spain; and as it is estimated by the best informed authorities that it will take, even with the greatest care and under the most favourable conditions, at least fifteen years to reproduce it from seed (a system not very likely to be pursued in that country,) at no very remote period this valuable paper-making material appears doomed to extinction. During the last few years a large and increasing supply of "ESPARTO," or as it is there called "_Alfa_," has been received from Africa; and although the quality of African Esparto is not valued by the paper-trade as high as the Spanish, still it meets with a ready sale, being used to mix with, or in substitution of the latter. As much as 60,000 tons were imported last year (1874) from Algeria, and great inducements by concessions and otherwise, are offered by the French Government to induce railway communication with the interior districts of that country, where the plant is said to abound on some of the mountainous plateaux, and thus for some little time the market may be supplied, but the difficulty of procuring labour, and the cost of railway carriage for such long distances, will add considerably to the present charges of transit to this country. Within the last two or three years, the Belgian and American Paper-makers have commenced using "Esparto," and so latterly have the French, and as our main sources of supply will now be Algeria, (a French colony,) any material reduction in prices can hardly be looked for.