Z2 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



that way, can not be used at all. One-fifth 

 or one-sixth of all the sawmill output of the 

 United States is made into boxes. It is the 

 low grade stuff, the cheap limiber, that remains 

 «hen the good grades have been culled out. 

 The lumbermen are in sympathy with the box 

 maker, because througli him tlie only market 

 for the cheap stuff is reached. Anything that 

 cuts down the sale of wooden boxes leaves that 

 much unsalable lumber on the millman 's hands. 

 The lack of statistics upon the subject has 

 been the cause of misunderstanding. Lumber- 

 men were led to believe that the fiber box had 

 taken 40 per cent of the box trade, and it was 

 believed by many that the chief material in 

 the fiber box manufacture was high grade wood 

 pulp. That belief has been made the basis of 

 argument against the fiber box on the sole 

 ground that its manufacture is inimical to the 

 cause of conservation. It was pointed out 

 that it was using good timber tor pulp, while 

 the low grades were left to rot at the mills 

 because the makers of wooden boxes could no 

 longer buy as much as formerly. The conclu- 

 sion reached by that line of argument was that, 

 inasnmch as the wooden box made use of low 

 grades that would otherwise go to waste, while 

 the fiber box drew supplies from high-grade 

 timber, which was valuable in paper making, 

 the wooden box deserved the business. The 

 fiber box manufacturers denied the allegations 

 in whole or in part, and insisted that their raw- 

 material was chiefly such as would be wasted 

 if they did not use it, and they claimed for 

 their industry as complete accord with the 

 principles of conservation as their competitors 

 claimed for theirs. 



Statistics of Manufacture 

 The Forest Service recently entered upon the 

 ccUectioD of statistics showing the extent of 

 the fiber box business. It already had much 

 data relating to the wooden box, but informa- 

 tion concerning the number of fiber boxes 

 made and the material entering into their com- 

 position was meager. 



The wooden box manufacturers bought 6,- 

 500,000,000 feet of lumber in 1907, and that 

 figure has generally been taken as a basis for 

 calculating the falling off since in the box 

 trade. In the fall of 1910 the Forest Service 

 completed a study of the wooden box industry 

 in six states. The study had continued con- 

 siderably more than a year, and the data col- 

 lected were not all for exactly the same period, 

 but were approximately contemporaneous. The 

 states were Massachusetts. Maryland, jSTorth 

 Carolina, Kentucky, Illinois and Wisconsin — 

 one Eastern, one Middle, two Southern, one 

 Lake state, and one of the Middle West. They 

 were believed to represent fairly well the aver- 

 age trade and business conditions of the coun- 

 try. A canvass by mail of all the wooden box 

 makers in the state was supplemented by per- 

 sonal visits to such as failed to furnish satis- 

 factory information. The statistics collected 

 as a result of this canvass are believed to be 

 approximately complete and correct. The total 

 quantity of lumber manufactured into boxes 

 in the states named, during the year preced- 

 ing, was 1,137,137,000 feet, board measure. 

 That is equivalent to about 63 feet per capita 

 for the states named. If that per capita holds 

 for the whole country — and there is no appar- 

 rcut reason why it should not do so — the total 

 annual demand for box lumber is about 5,418,- 

 000,000 feet. That is a falling off slightly in 

 excess of one billion feet from the estimate by 

 the box makers in 1907, which was a year of 

 large output. 



For the purpo.se of ascertaining the status 

 of the fiber box industry, inquiries, accom- 

 panied by reply cards, were sent to 237 manu- 

 facturers in the United States who were sup- 

 posed to be making boxes and containers of 

 various kinds that compete with the wooden 

 box. It turned out that a ma.iority were not 

 making such commodities. Thirty-seven re- 



ported that they made fiber board but not 

 boxes, thirty-four that they made boxes but not 

 board, and a few made both boards and boxes. 

 The making of the fiber board and the manu- 

 facture of boxes from the board are separate 

 industries, just as the mill that saws lumber 

 and the factory which makes the boxes are 

 distinct. The liber board is the product of a 

 jiaper miU, but the mill does not necessarily 

 complete the board ready for the box makers. 

 In fact, it usually does not do so. Its process 

 ends when it has turned out a material of the 

 required thickness and strength. The box fac- 

 tory takes the rolls of paper, and with its own 

 machinery glues together a sufficient number 

 of the sheets of paper to produce a board of 

 necessary thickness. The board is then cut in 

 proper patterns, and jjassing through other 

 machines, is made into boxes. "What is stated 

 in this connection refers solely to fiber boxes 

 of size and strength fitting them to compete 

 with wood, and not to that large number of 

 smaller and weaker boxes made of paper, and 

 which are in no sense competitors of the 

 wooden box for shipping merchandise. 



Specifications of Fiber Boxes 



Boxes which carry merchandise from the 

 producer to the consumer must possess suffi- 

 cient strength to witnstand the rough usage 

 incident to freight shipments on railroads, 

 boats, wagons, and occasionally by horseback 

 over mountain trans. The size of fiber boxes, 

 the thickness of the board of which they are 

 made, the maximum weight of each box when 

 filled for shipment, and the minimum strength 

 of the board, are governed by rules which rail- 

 roads and some other common carriers rigidly 

 enforce. Three thicknesses of board are speci- 

 fied, 60, SO and 100 points— that is, 60, SO 5nd 

 lOO one-thousandths of an inch in thickness, 

 respectively. As there are three recognized 

 tliicknesses for the board, there are three sizes 

 ef boxes, and a size is designated by adding 

 the three dimensions — length, breadth and 

 (iepth. The 60 point board must not be made 

 into a box whose three dimensions exceed 65 

 inches, and its weight, when filled, must not 

 exceed 40 pounds. The 80 point board is for 

 a box whose tliree dimensions shall not exceed 

 70 inches, and the 100 point board makes a 

 box of 75 inches dimensions, and its weight 

 when filled for shipment is limited to 90 

 pounds. The strength of the board is subject 

 to strict regulations, and boxes not up to the 

 standard for strength are not accepted for 

 shipment by railroads. Larger fiber boxes or 

 containers are occasionally carried by express 

 companies that do not insist on the enforce- 

 ment of the foregoing regulations. Railroads 

 accept fiber boxes of a shipping weight up to 

 'j.00 pounds, if the corners are properly rein- 

 forced with wood or metal. 



Composition of Fiber Board 



The term fiber board is not understood alike 

 by all persons. Some would distinguish be- 

 tween strawhoard. jute board, chipboard and 

 pulp board. Tlio distinction is not essential in 

 the present case. As the term is here intended 

 tc be understood, fiber board for boxes is made 

 [jrincipally of four materials, but not neces- 

 sarily or usually all in the same board. Of 

 the total material reported in this iuvestiga- 

 tion, 57 per cent was chip, 22 straw, 16 wood 

 pulp and five was jute. Chip consists of old 

 papers, low grade or refuse material from pulp 

 mills, and screenings, and waste of other kinds, 

 repulped and used again. The straw is the 

 ordinary farm product. The jute consists of 

 old rope and bagging. The 16 per cent wood 

 jiulp comes directly from the forest, and while 

 some of it is of low grade, a portion at least 

 must be of good quality to act as a binding 

 material and give the board the required 

 strength. Much of the best grade wood pulp 

 employed in this industry is imported from 

 Norway and Sweden. Until recently no mills 



in this country made the kind of pulp required 

 for this purpose, but such mills are now being 

 equipped here. 



It thus appears that, except the small quan- 

 tity of good wood pulp, the fiber board is 

 made almost wholly of waste material. At 

 least half of it is old newspapers, screenings, 

 viTapping papers, paper boxes and material of 

 that nmd. The rope and bagging are no less 

 a product of the waste heap. The increased 

 price paid for old papers since fiber board 

 boxes stimulated the demand has resulted in 

 drawing supplies from small towns and rural 

 conmiunities where formerly no one went to 

 the trouble to collect such material, as well as 

 in encouraging the diligence of scavengers who 

 search the alleys, ash cans and public garbage 

 dumps in cities. It is a fact, brought out by 

 investigation, that New Orleans is shipping 

 the contents of its waste basket to Chicago for 

 the fiber board industry. Such a thing was 

 impossible a few j-ears ago. The same material 

 is pulped again aud again. The old papers 

 l.iecome boxes, are filled with merchandise, go 

 to the towns, are thrown into the waste barrel, 

 and are collected and sent back to the mills 

 to be made over. An examination of the bales 

 of stuff arriving at a fiber board mill shows 

 that a large part of it consists of fiber boxes, 

 broken and torn, that were through the mill 

 before. 



The price of old papers when they reach 

 the mills ranges from $8 to $15 a ton. The 

 average in Chicago, which draws supplies from 

 hundreds of miles on all sides, is about $12 a 

 ton. It is claimed that the cheapest pulp made 

 from wood by present methods can not com- 

 pete with old papers and other waste at that 

 price in the making of fiber board; but if 

 such material should advance in price to about 

 $17 a ton, wood pulp, at present prices, would 

 drive it from the fiber ,joard mills. 



Extent of Fiber Bos Industry 

 The manufacturers of fiber boxes use ap- 

 proximately 116,000 tons of board a year. On 

 the basis of 60 point board, this is equivalent 

 to 920,000,000 square feet of surface; on the 

 80 point basis it amounts to 748.000,000 feet; 

 and if the basis is 100 point, the surface meas- 

 ure is 579,000,000 feet. If it is assumed that, 

 foot for foot of surface, the fiber board and 

 the lumber will make the same number of 

 boxes, a basis of comparison is found for the 

 two materials in box making. Of the total 

 quantity of boxes of both kinds made, 85.5 

 I'Cr cent were wood, and 14.5 fiber, if all the 

 liber board were 60 point. If all were 80 

 point, the percentage of boxes would be 87.9 

 wood and 12.1 fiber; and if the fiber board 

 were 100 point, the percentages would be 90.3 

 wood and 9.7 fiber. If the three thicknesses 

 of fiber board, 60, SO and 100 point, were used 

 in equal amounts, the percentages of boxes 

 would be 87.9 wood and 12.1 fiber. 



The foregoing percentages are based on the 

 use of 6,500,000,000 feet of box lumber, and 

 the assumption that it was all 1 inch thick and 

 was used in that form for boxes. Board meas- 

 ure is based on a thickness of 1 inch. As a 

 fact, only large and strong boxes are made of 

 1 inch lumber, the others are of thinner mate- 

 rial, down to a quarter of an inch or less. A 

 thickness of % inch for all the boxes made 

 would be above rather than below the average. 

 Assuming a % inch thickness for the entire 

 quantitv of box lumber used in the United 

 States, "the 5,418,000,000 feet board measure 

 become 7,224,000,000 feet surface measure. 

 Calculated on that basis, 88.7 per cent of all 

 the boxes were wood, and 11.3 fiber, if 60 

 point fiber board were used; but if SO point 

 were used, the percentages become 90.6 for 

 wood and 9.4 for fiber; while if all fiber board 

 were 100 point, the percentages would be 92.3 

 for wood and 7.7 for fiber. If the three thick- 

 nesses of fiber board were used in equal quan- 

 tities, the general average becomes 90.6 per 



