A field with Ranger Mack, a series of conservation and
nature talks by Wacland McNeill, known to thousands
of people in Wisconsin as Ranger Mack.
It would be well for all of us to know how inseparable we
are from the world of nature.
How dependent we are upon the gifts of nature.
It would add an zest to life if we knew that,
not only in the out of darkness, but in the darkness of nature.
We know how inseparable we are from the world of nature.
How dependent we are upon the gifts of nature.
It would add an zest to life if we knew that.
Not only in the out of doors but wherever we
are, even in the kitchen.
The food we eat.
The clothes we wear, the homes that protect us and shelter us.
The drugs that we use when in distress.
The articles that we use in our pleasures.
The things that enhance the beauty of our homes
all come from nature.
The tact is the onward march of civilization can be traced
by the discoveries that man made, the secrets of nature
and then the application of these secrets that
he made in the making of things that we use, that we
want and that we need in light.
Now one of the great discoveries is the making of paper.
It took centuries for us to get the paper that we used today.
It is a wonderful heritage that has come down to us.
From the time that the Chinese made paper from the preparus
plant down to the wood pulp of today, it was
a steady growth.
It was a series of discoveries that we are going to relate now.
The Chinese made paper from the preparus plant.
They took the outer sheath rough sheath off the stem of the
preparus plant and then peeled off the inner sheaths, laid
them edge to edge, carefully, then crosswise edge to edge.
From the layer and then subjected the layer to heavy
pressure and they had preparus.
Non-p preparus of course they recorded many of the documents
from which we get information with regard to civilization
of those ancient days.
The Chinese made paper out of cotton fiber.
To great care they laid these fibers side by side and then
subjected those to pressure and made paper in that
way, all behind.
The moors found out a process of making paper by using old
rags, disintegrating these old rags and subjecting
them to pressure.
They carried this process to Europe and that is the way
that paper used to be made, all behind, crude processes, paper
was scarce as you might know.
One day a German rag maker by the name of Keller
was rambling through the woods and he stumbled
on to a wasp's nest.
A nest similar to the one that you see here.
But it was a nest that had been broken up and he took some
of the other coverings of this nest and examined it very
carefully, tore it apart.
He noticed that it was in layers.
Then he took it home and worked with it at home.
He analyzed it and made the discovery that it
was made from wood pulp.
I suppose that when he made that discovery, he felt so
elated that he yelled just like Archimedes did when
he discovered the law of Pacific gravity.
I found it, I found it.
It's made of wood pulp and so he went back to the place that
he found these found the nest and he watched
the wasps at work.
Daily he returned to that place and watched
them build their nest.
And he discovered that the wasps went to old wood, wood
that was weathered, wood from which the auger days of it
could be easily removed.
Some of it even so rotten that it was pulp.
He watched the wasps as they worked, ticking off
the material, chewing it thoroughly, getting
a ball of it and then going back to the place where they
were constructing their nursery.
Then he watched them as they spread this ball, these balls
of pulp out over the nest.
They would come in with a ball and with their front feet and
with their heads roll out the ball of pulp.
Making each addition along the edge of the former
one and so you can see them in these circles
or in these strips in just that way.
And when you tear the nest apart, it is easier
to tear along those lines than it is a cost
way. The difference in color is due
to the difference in pulp from which the insects took their
egg, it took their pulp.
One time the wasps made a nest from a fourth
of July decoration.
They took the crepe paper, the red white and blue and
treated it in just the same way.
As the dough, the wood pulp and made the nursery
out of that material.
It was a red white and blue, a patriotic nursery
as you can imagine.
This is a beautiful nest, complete, no
damage has been done.
You see the wasps after they have spread out the pulp.
Water proof the outside so that it is impervious to water, sheds
the wind and makes the nursery within well protected.
The entrance is at the apex of the conical shaped nursery and
there some of the workers are all stationed just as they are
in the beehive to see that no enemies make an entrance to
the nursery.
A field with Ranger Mac, a series of conservation
and nature talks by Wakeland McNeill.
A man who is known to thousands of people here
in Wisconsin as Ranger Mac.
[Pause]