92 THE SCHOOL BOOK OF FORESTRY 



This forest is also rich in water power. It would 

 take more than 250,000 horses to produce as much 

 power as that which the streams and rivers of 

 southern Alaska supply. 



The western hemlock and Sitka spruce are the 

 best for paper making. The spruce trees are 

 generally sound and of good quality. The hem- 

 lock trees are not so good, being subject to decay 

 at the butts. This often causes fluted trunks. 

 The butt logs from such trees usually are inferior. 

 This defect in the hemlock reduces its market 

 value to about one-half that of the spruce for 

 paper making. Some of the paper mills in 

 British Columbia are now using these species of 

 pulpwood and report that they make high- 

 grade paper. 



The pulp logs are floated down to the paper 

 mill. In the mill the bark is removed from the 

 logs. Special knives remove all the knots and 

 cut the logs into pieces twelve inches long and six 

 inches thick. These sticks then pass into a pow- 

 erful grinding machine which tears them into 

 small chips. The chips are cooked in special 

 steamers until they are soft. The softened chips 

 are beaten to pieces in large vats until they form 

 a pasty pulp. The pulp is spread over an endless 



