COMPETITORS OF COTTON 



Nor is that the whole story. In 1930, a third of the 

 cellulose used in making rayon, transparent wrapping 

 paper, photographic film, and cellulose lacquers came 

 from cotton linters, the short fuzz of lint that clings to 

 the cottonseed after it passes through the gin. Today, 

 ninety per cent of the cellulose for these purposes comes 

 from wood. In time of war there is an imperative de- 

 mand for cotton cellulose to be nitrated to smokeless 

 powder. Therefore the War Production Board allotted 

 "chemical cotton" so niggardly that makers of rayon 

 and film and lacquers were forced willy-nilly to adopt 

 "wood cellulose." 



"They have clubbed us out of using linters/' said 

 Arthur Petersen, who runs the brand-new Celanese 

 chemical plant near Kings ville, Texas. "Now that we 

 are on the new basis, they will jolly well have to coax 

 us back again." 



This compulsory war experience has resulted in 

 better, cheaper wood cellulose and a rapid accumula- 

 tion of know-how in handling this material in the manu- 

 facture of fibers, films, and coatings. For the future of 

 cotton it is important, not that wood will be a more 

 serious competitor of linters, but that wood cellulose, 

 the raw material of cotton's direct competitors, will be 

 cheaper and its manipulation more expert. 



On cotton's third front, the war .of liberation from 

 political control, the fighting has hardly begun. Today 

 the collaborationists are very much in control; tomor- 



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