PERIODICAL LITERATURE 617 



woods not now used for this purpose. I doubt if these results have furnished 

 any information to manufacturers of paper or contributed materially to the so- 

 lution of the problem. So far as I know, they have contributed nothing towards 

 a substitute for wood for news and book papers. 



"Unless wood is made available, the industry, as we know it today, must in- 

 evitably decline. It cannot live upon the uncertain by-products of other in- 

 dustries. 



"Until municipalities and towns organize an efficient method of collecting and 

 marketing waste paper, we cannot look for any great replacement value of paper 

 stock by old paper, and there is little prospect of this. Even then it would be 

 absurd to think that paper stock will not wear out and need replacement as much 

 as anything else. Therefore, there must always be a dependable source of new 

 raw material, and so long as it can be had, wood will be the chief dependence. 

 And I repeat again what I said about the increased use of waste paper — the 

 larger the use of by-product waste stalks of flax, corn, rice, and sugar-cane and 

 such like, the higher will be the price of paper. As long as wood is available, 

 at almost any price, it will be preferred for dominant reasons. 



"It is regrettable that our large manufacturers have not taken more adequate 

 means to insure their future supply of wood. If, instead of putting their money 

 into profits and timberlands exclusively, they had put some part of it into refor- 

 esting lands they had cut over, their future supply would have been better pro- 

 tected. 



"Although the necessity for protecting our forest growth has been generally 

 recognized, the principal effort has been made in the direction of conserving what 

 we have rather than in reforestation. It is still possible for private interests to 

 take up the work of reforestation for their own protection, but the time is ap- 

 proaching when this will be no longer possible, and unless heroic efforts are 

 made promptly the supply of wood will be exhausted before a new growth can 

 be produced. Long ago the National and State governments should have real- 

 ized this and taken steps to prevent it for the public welfare. Instead, however, 

 they are proposing to defeat whatever initiative has been taken by fixing prices 

 for newsprint paper. In a recent address before the bankers of Montreal, El- 

 wood Wilson, chief forester of the Laurentide Company, said that unless a fair 

 margin of profit was allowed, the first economies to be effected would be the 

 abandonment of reforestation on cut-over lands and the stripping of the timber 

 holdings by the companies to get their money out of the business, no matter what 

 the consequences to the future. 



"I do not complain of price-fixing per se, but of the failure of legislators to 

 discern that unless they make provision for reforesting the denuded woodlands 

 by including in the cost a definite proportion for reforestation, and compelling 

 its use for this purpose, the paper industry will suffer on the cross of an im- 

 possible wood supply very soon. 



"The principal function of the National and State governments in this matter 

 deals principally with the maintenance of National and State parks, reservations, 

 and public domains, and only incidentally fosters reforestation for commercial 

 puri)oses. 



"We arc taking coal and r)il from the earth which can never be replaced. We 

 are stripping the surface of the forests, which, fortunately, it is possible to re- 

 store, and a nation-wide propaganda should be organized compelling the refor- 

 estation of a certain proportion of the waste lands in every State in the Union 



