1380 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



steadily to 13% million tons in 1929, and predictions made by various 

 authorities place the annual requirements for 1950 anywhere from 

 24 to 30 million tons. Such a consumption would require an annual 

 cut of pulp wood amounting, roughly, to 15 percent of our present 

 annual cut of timber for all purposes. As a profitable use of large 

 land acreages, the growing of pulpwood on a sustained-yield basis 

 thus offers great promise for the near future. 



It is not only as a quantity use of wood that pulp and paper manu- 

 facture takes an important rating. The quality and refinement of 

 the product gives the industry a high labor and conversion factor, and 

 the relative stability of its operations contributes to permanent com- 

 munity values. A recent study has shown that in the conversion of 

 1 million cubic feet of timber into lumber, planing mill products and 

 boxes, 75 men were employed, $75,000 in wages was paid, and the 

 resulting products were valued at $250,000 ; whereas, in the conversion 

 of the same amount of wood into pulp and finally into a good grade of 

 paper, ^the employees numbered 150, the wages were $200,000, and 

 the finished products were valued at $900,000. The increasing de- 

 pendence of the United States on foreign sources for its pulp and 

 paper production is of considerable significance in this connection. 

 As pointed out under " Timber Requirements", the quantity of 

 foreign wood used in producing the paper consumed in the United 

 States has increased steadily, until in 1930 the proportion had risen 

 to 56 percent. In terms of wood use, the 1930 paper and wood pulp 

 consumption of the United States was equivalent to approximately 

 13 million cords of pulpwood. Of this quantity, the equivalent of 

 nearly 7,300,000 cords was imported. In terms of land use this means 

 that perhaps 12 million acres of forest land in the United States were 

 deprived of not less than a $50,000,000 contribution to the national 

 market. In terms of labor employed, our 1930 imports of pulp and 

 paper could be considered as equivalent to the " exportation" of 

 full-time jobs for 70,000 American citizens. 



Two main reasons may be assigned for this situation. The first is 

 the present dependence of the paper industry upon a very few species. 

 The second, which is related to the first, is the tenacious and long- 

 standing concentration of the pulp and paper industry (the sulphate 

 pulping group chiefly excepted) within easy transportation distance 

 of the eastern spruce and hemlock forests and the large pulp and 

 paper consuming markets. As the native supplies of northern and 

 eastern spruce and hemlock have been progressively depleted, the 

 natural tendency of large established industries has been to rely more 

 and more on imports of these species from abroad (chiefly from Can- 

 ada) or to move their mills over the border, rather than to migrate to 

 distant regions of the United States and utilize new stands of similar 

 or of different woods. 



In view of the foregoing, the task of research in furthering the 

 interests of our domestic pulp and paper production is clear. This is 

 to increase the possibilities of economical production, higher yields, 

 and better pulp quality from our native woods, both those now pre- 

 ferred for pulping and those not now used extensively or not used at 

 all. Its accomplishment must be based on a varied research attack, 

 for which the following lines are suggested : 



1. Improvement of present pulping processes or the development 

 of new processes to mcrease the usefulness of present pulpwood 

 species. 



