12 with a resultant slowness loss when broke slowness was increased to typical paper machine refined broke levels 40 seconds williams slowness with conventional laboratory beating wrv retention was 90 of virgin fiber wrv levels without treatment refining to slowness levels of 75 150 seconds is required to reach virgin hardwood wrv levels it is to be understood that slowness and ash levels were reduced by dewatering and subsequent washing operations washing did not increase wrv levels even though ash levels were reduced however it has been determined that increased slowness will increase wrv values and that increased ash content will lower wrv levels tappi standard handsheets were prepared from the various broke discussed above with respect to table 1 and the sample properties are set forth in table 2 below the wrv was increased due to cooking with water according to the present invention slowness was decreased by cooking with water according to the present invention table 2______________________________________handsheet properties sample properties broke broke liquor water as dewat cooked cookedproperty taken ered broke broke______________________________________water retention value 1 173 1 186 1 275 1 182 gm h sub 2 o gm fiber williams slowness 35 3 29 7 24 9 23 7 sec 3 gm ______________________________________ finally the figure is a graphical illustration of water retention value versus williams slowness as can be seen in the figure the broke treated according to the present invention had an improvement in wrv and slowness in comparison with the untreated broke this is because the once dried fiber which was treated according to the present invention behaves more like virgin fiber while the values of the liquor cooked broke are ideally closer to the virgin fiber values the water.