172 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



annually in value of product. Practically all of this is from material 

 formerly wasted. 



All of the principal pulp-making processes have been or are being 

 exhaustively studied. The suitability for use under the different 

 processes of American woods which occur in sufficient quantities is 

 gradually being tested. Some 30 new woods have been found suitable 

 for ground-wood pulp, 15 for soda pulp, and nearly as many for 

 sulphate pulp. The utilization of bark has been commercially demon- 

 strated for shingle making and its suitability shown experimentally 

 for some grades of paper in which strength is not a requisite. Other 

 discoveries, truly appalling in their simplicity, have been made. By 

 adapting to the sulphate process for the manufacture of kraft paper 

 the ancient housewife's principle that beans should be soaked before 

 they are cooked, and soaking the chipped wood before it is cooked, 

 pulp yields per unit volume of wood have on a semicommercial basis 

 been increased 5 to 10 per cent, cooking time reduced 20 per cent, 

 a saving made in chemicals of about 20 per cent, and the strength of 

 the paper increased 10 to 20 per cent and its quality otherwise im- 

 proved. American woods not now used have been made into kraft 

 or wrapping paper 50 per cent stronger than any commonly made in 

 the United States or imported. 



A series of fundamental studies are under way which will place 

 the entire wood preservation industry on a firm scientific basis 

 chemically and pathologically. In addition, the greatest mass of data 

 available anywhere has already been secured on the effect of various 

 v/ood preservatives on ties, poles, piling, and other classes of timber 

 subject to decay. 



An exhaustive study, country-wide in its scope, of logging and 

 milling costs and methods from the standing tree to the completed 

 lumber product has been under way for several years. It is developing 

 rapidly a more exact basis for the appraisal of National Forest timber 

 and developing the basic data needed by the new profession of logging 

 engineering. In time it will lead into intensive efficiency studies. 



In general all technological forest products investigations are first 

 tried out on a small intensive scale. Promising results then pass to 

 semicommercial tests where ordinarily reactions are found to be 

 somewhat different, requiring a corresponding variation in method. 

 No technological investigation is classed as complete, however, regard- 



