198 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



foreign pulpwood, Even less of the New England wood is available 

 if a long-term view is taken of the situation and if the present stands 

 are regarded as absolutely essential forest capital on which interest 

 must be earned in terms of growth. Competition with other uses, 

 particularly lumber, must also be taken into account. 



In the Lake States and in the Middle Atlantic region similar condi- 

 tions of sparseness and inaccessibility of stand, and in the Lake States 

 defectiveness of the fir, combine to make about the same proportion 

 of the stand unavailable to the pulp and paper industry as in New 

 England. Stands are being logged today for spruce pulpwood in 

 New York which contain as little as two cords per acre. 



In spite of having a domestic stand over 50 times as great as the 

 annual consumption of domestic and imported wood combined, the 

 Northeastern United States now imports nearly a third of its aspen 

 pulpwood. This is due to poor distribution of present stands with 

 respect to the soda-pulp industry. Pennsylvania produces almost no 

 aspen of satisfactory pulpwood size, yet consumed 81,000 cords in 

 1929. Maine, although importing nearly a fifth of its aspen pulp- 

 wood, finds its own stands in remote locations unmarketable. Up to 

 1922, the quantity of aspen used for pulp in the Lake States was 

 trifling, in spite of the known presence of enough standing timber to 

 support a permanent industry using probably 200 thousand cords a 

 year; by 1929 the use had jumped to nearly 60 thousand cords, under 

 the stimulus of availability. The lumber industry offers little, if any, 

 competition to the pulp and paper industry in the use of aspen. 



In contrast to the scarcity of spruce and fir a scarcity which is 

 now being met by huge imports of pulpwood, wood pulp, and paper 

 from foreign countries is the abundance within the New England, 

 Middle Atlantic, and Lake States of species such as beech, birch, 

 maple, and various pines, which are already classed as pulp species, 

 but which are relatively little used in these regions. Full use of these 

 species now available seems the most promising solution of the 

 immediate problem of availability in the older pulp- and paper-pro- 

 ducing regions. Research, both at the Forest Products Laboratory 

 of the United States Forest Service and in commercial plants, has 

 amply demonstrated the possibility of adapting pulping processes to 

 their extensive use. Some of these possibilties have been discussed 

 in Department of Agriculture Bulletin No. 1241, "How the United 

 States Can Meet Its Present and Future Pulpwood Requirements." 



Pacific Coast region. The opportunity in the Pacific Coast region 

 for still larger sulphite- and mechanical-pulp industries is based on 

 supplies of virgin spruce, fir, and hemlock many times larger than 

 those in any other forest region of the United States (table 5). 

 Even larger stands of pine afford a similar opportunity to increase the 

 production of sulphate pulp and the grades of paper, such as wrapping 

 and boards, manufactured therefrom. This region also contains an 

 abundance of available water power. Of the total potential horse- 

 power estimated for the United States, about two fifths is in this 

 region. 



The fact that the pulp and paper industry in the Pacific Coast 

 region must, to some extent at least, compete for raw material with 

 a very large and well-developed lumber industry is not necessarily a 

 disadvantage. There is no reason other than a lack of pulpwood 

 markets why there should not be operations designed primarily to 



