more extensive treatment softwood pulp thus produced contains a higher percentage of lignin hardwood or softwood which has not been extracted will donate fatty acids to the pulping medium these can precipitate with the lignin or distill during concentration the presence of fatty acids causes the ph of the solution originally in the range 9 11 to be reduced the amount of water which is in the lignocellulosic material whether dried or not is sufficient for the delignification of this invention although additional water may be added if desired preferably additional water is not added to the delignification mixture at the delignification stage of the process the treated lignocellulosic material may be subjected to an extractive process to remove the lignin therefrom to yield cellulose fibers the extracted lignin fraction may then be further treated to yield the usable lignin for example a particular embodiment of this invention involves treatment of wood chips or ground wood with liquid methylene chloride at 25 u00b0 c to extract the waxes fats rosins etc from the wood the methylene chloride is removed from the wax containing fraction and recycled additional methylene chloride is recovered by blowing dry air through the defatted wood the defatted wood chips are contacted.