ECONOMIC BIOLOGY 375 



cover)'', for paper of some sort or another was used by several races in 

 widely separated parts of the world in very remote times. The ancient 

 Egyptians used excellent paper made from the papyrus plant and from the 

 lotus. The Chinese, thousands of years ago, used paper made of rice straiv, 

 and in the New World the Aztecs and Alayas had been using splendid 

 parchmentlike paper made from the agave or maguey plants for untold cen- 

 turies before the arrival of the Spaniards. 



Today a vast number of plants are employed in making paper. Bamboo, 

 banana leaves, palm fibers, seaweeds, cotton, hemp, jute, Manila, reeds, mul- 

 berry, bidrushes, straiv and countless other fiber-plants are ground to pulp 

 and passed between massive rollers to come forth as sheets of paper. But 

 by far the greatest quantity of paper is made from forest trees. Spruce, 

 poplar, fir, cedar, and many other woods may be used for paper-making, 

 but the best of all "pulp" trees, especially for the cheap newspaper stock, 

 are the spruces. Whole forests have been leveled to supply our people with 

 their daily papers, and few persons have any conception of the almost in- 

 credible quantities of pulp wood that are consumed in this way. 



Merely to supply the paper for a single edition of one of the big New 

 York newspapers necessitates the complete annihilation of eighty acres of 

 forest. Multiply that by the number of similar papers of the metropolis, 

 and multiply the result by 365 and we will get some vague idea of the al- 

 most inconceivable numbers of trees which are annually felled and con- 

 verted into paper-pulp. I say "vague" idea, for big as they are, the papers 

 published in New York City are only a very small fraction of the total 

 number of papers published daily throughout our country. More than 

 14,000,000 cords of wood are required to supply the paper needs of the 

 United States annually. The United States and Canadian newspapers print 

 annually enough paper to encircle the world with a belt fifty miles wide. If 

 this paper was in the form of the standard roll with a width of 73 inches, it 

 M'ould be 13,000,000 miles in length. Moreover, vast quantities of trees are 

 used in making cardboard, various composition substitutes for lumber and 

 for crates, boxes, and other purposes, while whole forests are felled to 

 supply the tens of thousands of cords of wood needed to manufacture 

 matchsticks. 



Mineral and chemical dyes have taken the place of many plant-dyes, yet 

 there are certain dye-plants which are still in demand, and which have 

 never yet been replaced by artificial substitutes. 



Although the use of indigo has decreased until very little of the once 

 important dye-plant is cultivated, yet no one has ever discovered an arti- 

 ficial indigo that can equal that of the plant for color and fadeless quality. 

 Fustic from the big forest trees of South and Central America is still used 

 in enormous quantities, for it is the best and most durable of khaki dyes. 

 When we use butter or eat chili con carne as well as other foods, we 

 swallow a dye made from the seed-coverings of a tropical American tree. 



