200 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



The rapid growth of a pulp and paper industry in the South during 

 the past decade has undoubtedly been due in a large measure to an 

 abundant supply of southern yellow pines. (Table 5.) The principal 

 product at present is sulphate or kraft pulp. It has been found that 

 a kraft pulp can be made from southern yellow pine that is quite as 

 strong and as satisfactory iu texture as is obtained from other species 

 and other localities. With the exception of a mill or two producing 

 bleached book papers from the pines, the insulation and pressed-wood- 

 board developments utilizing bagasse and pine sawmill waste, respec- 

 tively, and several recently built " semichemical " pulping plants, all 

 of the establishments in the South make this brown kraft pulp. The 

 utilization of kraft for cement bags and similar containers has given 

 this industry considerable impetus. The South now can be said to 

 dominate the kraft pulp field. 



The trend in the South at the beginning of the depression was toward 

 a considerable enlargement of the kraft pulping industry. The cheap 

 pulpwood, together with proper attention to the technical improve- 

 ments necessary to produce pulps equal or superior to imported 

 products, may well win the kraft market for southern producers. 

 When it is considered that the United States imported 450 thousand 

 tons of sulphate pulp in 1929, the possibilities for great development 

 in the South without cutting in on present domestic production else- 

 where can be realized. 



The raw material for an indefinite expansion of the kraft industry 

 in the South is even more readily available than that for expansion of 

 the soda-pulp industry. There are over 100 million acres of southern 

 pine lands, and even a tithe of their possible annual production of 

 wood can supply not only the present American but the world demand 

 for kraft papers. Moreover, should recent technical developments 

 by the Forest Products Laboratory of the Forest Service be taken 

 advantage of commercially, permitting the branching out of the 

 industry or the development of lines other than brown pulps, the 

 necessary timber is still abundantly available in this region. 



It has been more than 10 years since the Forest Products Laboratory 

 announced a method for the production of bleached book and maga- 

 zine papers from southern yellow pines and gums. Ordinary kraft 

 pulp is very difficult to bleach and the usual bleached product is of 

 low strength. The new method involves the use of the sulphate or 

 kraft process with certain modifications, but the chief point of differ- 

 ence is the use of a two-stage system of bleaching. The findings of 

 this research are practiced by not more than one or two southern 

 mills, and consequently only a small amount of book paper is at 

 present made in the South. Elsewhere, however, progress in the 

 two-stage bleaching practice has gone on apace. Savings made 

 possible by this practice have resulted in the installation of two- 

 stage systems in many pulp mills operating on spruce and hemlock. 

 Thus, the practicability of the idea is established. Its intensive 

 application to southern woods should make them available to the 

 book-paper industry. 



Another investigation had the objective of combining strength, 

 heretofore lacking in bleached southern yellow pine papers, with 

 lightness of color. Such a pulp is especially desirable since to a cer- 

 tain extent it would be a substitute for the sulphite pulp used in news- 



