HOW TREES BECOME PAPER
Paper is usually made from wood. Wood from trees is taken to a paper mill and cut into chips. The chips are placed into huge vats. Then they are boiled and stirred with chemicals until they become soggy and mushy. At this stage the peper is called "pulp." The pulp is washed and bleached to make the paper white, and clay or chalk is added. The paper is now called "stuff."
Since writing paper needs to have a smooth finish, cotton and other fibers are added to the stuff as it goes through a stack of heavy polished rollers. These rollers weigh thirty tons! The stuff is emptied into a machine that has a screen to drain off the water. The fibers that are left are pushed together into a thin sheet. The sheet goes through a set of felt-covered rollers that press any leftover water out of the paper.