150 The Forest Products Laboratory 



are a serious problem for the paper manufacturers. I understand 

 some work has ah-eady been done along that line. 



The study of paper specialties such as fiber containers, indurated 

 ware, molded articles, artificial silks, twines and textiles requires a 

 highly organized research body, and progress has necessarily been 

 slow along these lines. Work has been done in an attempt to develop 

 water and grease proof containers, and a certain degree of success has 

 attended the efforts. 



Various raw materials other than wood are receiving an increasing 

 amount of attention from the trade, and utilization of one such mate- 

 rial : namely, cotton linters, has been successfully carried to commercial 

 scale operations. Others such as the various grasses, straws and crop 

 plants should be the subject of investigations, but must await the solu- 

 tions of those problems w^hich are more pressing, and which promise 

 more valuable results. 



Studies on the chemistry of pulps have been confined principally 

 to the research carried on in the European countries, although the sub- 

 ject is of great importance in connection with the use of chemical pulp 

 for manufacture into various cellulose derivitives. The lack of this 

 knowledge was very forcibly brought home during the war when in- 

 vestigations of the suitability of chemical pulps for manufacture into 

 nitro-cellulose were seriously hampered by our ignorance of the sub- 

 ject. In the study of pulp wood and wood pulp decay, chemistry will, 

 undoubtedly, play an important pai-t in determining the various de- 

 composition products formed by the decay organisms. However, it 

 must be remembered that in all cases where a chemical study of pulp 

 or wood is made, complete data must be available relative to the pre- 

 vious treatment which the material has undergone. Too much work 

 has already been done upon pulps whose origin was unknown. Of the 

 various studies mentioned, this one alone requires the services of sev- 

 eral highly trained men, and results could in no case be expected under 

 several years' time. 



The beginning of the study of this pro])lem of deterioration in 

 pulp wood and wood pulp to any great extent in the laboratory was 

 brought about by the experience we were having at the mill in which I 

 am interested, with fungus growth in stored and purchased pulp. 

 Owing to the serious problems of transportation during the war it 

 became necessary to purchase wood pulp in full cargoes and store it 



