54 



Future Needs and Possibilities of the Wood-Pulp Industry. 



Having given a more or less incomplete account of the production, 

 uses, supply, and present status of wood pulp let us now notice what this 

 enormous industry means to our limited forested areas. Some idea of 

 the rapid destruction of our spruce forests for pulp purposes can be got 

 from the following: "A prominent New York newspaper uses 150 tons 

 of paper daily. To produce this amount of paper 225 cords of spruce 

 wood are consumed. It requires 1* cords of wood to produce one ton of 

 paper pulp. As the spruce ordinarily occurs in our northern mountains 

 it averages about 5 cords to the acre."' This means that every day, for 

 this one newspaper alone, 45 acres of our mountain spruce are being 

 consumed. Of course in the best spruce stands, such as those of Saxony 

 and Bavaria, where large quantities of spruce are raised for pulp, it 

 grows in dense, pure stands and yields many times as much as the average 

 acre in this country, at the lowest about 20 cords. Even at that a single 

 edition of a metropolitan Sunday paper would use up more than 10 acres 

 of the very best spruce stand. 



And again, from the Scientific American of November 14. 1903: "It 

 has been estimated that nine novels had a total sale of 1,600,000 copies. 

 This means 2,000,000 pounds of paper. The average spruce three yields 

 a little less than half a cord of wood, which is equivalent to 500 pounds 

 of paper. In other words, these nine novels swept away 4,000 trees. 

 Is it any wonder that those interested in forestry look with anxiety upon 

 the paper mill?" 



Paradoxical as it may seem however, in those countries that are 

 growing pulp timbers, the paper pulp manufacturer is the most powerful 

 ally of the forester in that he uses the thinnings of the forest which 

 begin while the forest is still young and continue throughout its whole 

 existence. 



The situation of the pulp manufacturer is well given by one of our 

 most active foresters, John Gifford. who says: "The pulp manufacturer's 

 plant represents the investment of perhaps a million dollars, while the 

 plant of the lumberman is worth only about ten or twenty thousand dol- 

 lars. The lumberman owns the land not for the land's sake, nor for the 

 amount and quality of timber the land is capable of producing, but for 

 the crop which covers it. He buys it. uses it. and then abandons it. 

 He pays taxes on it only during the process of reduction. The pulp 



