49 



The Wood Pulp Industry. 



By M. D. Renkenberger. 



Wood pulp and the wood pulp industry have come to their present 

 importance within the last twenty-five years. An increased use of paper, 

 of which wood pulp forms a large per cent., appears not only in news- 

 papers and all kinds of common papers but in the manufacture of many 

 useful and ornamental articles. This increased use of wood pulp in the 

 paper industry, together with the fact that the particular kinds of timber 

 used for pulp exist in limited amounts, makes it not only wise but abso- 

 lutely imperative that the matter of raising trees for pulp wood be con- 

 sidered. Unless, indeed, some substitute is found for wood pulp, this 

 matter must be taken up seriously in the States, and that within a very 

 few years. 



The wood pulp industry first appeared as such in the census of 1870. 

 Since then the growth has been rapid and steady, the increase in the 

 value of raw material, for example, in 1900 being more than 59 per cent. 

 over the value of material consumed in 1890. The growth of our export 

 trade in paper and pulp stock has been steady and healthful, amounting 

 in 1900 to a total of $0,074,296, an increase of nearly 500 per cent, during 

 the decade. The grades exported are largely wood papers (especially 

 news), while the usual imports are of the higher grades of book and fancy 

 papers and specialties. The per capita production of paper has increased 

 from 8.1 pounds in 1860 to 56.9 pounds in 1900, the per capita value of 

 which is now over $1.66. One author claims that more wood is con- 

 sumed in the form of pulp by the great paper making establishments than 

 is used by the combined railway systems of our country. 



The raw material for pulp comes chiefly from the spruce and poplar 

 of northern United States and Canada. At the enormous rate at which 

 this one industry is using up existing timber, to say nothing of the vast 

 drain made upon the virgin forests for lumber, fuel, etc., there will soon 

 come a time when either inferior grades will have to be used or a sub- 

 stitute be found. As yet few attempts have been made to raise trees fox- 

 pulp wood and as the consumption of wood for this purpose is enormous, 



4— A. OFlSciENCK. 



