138 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



the mill. In the manufacture of spruce, fir and hemlock 

 lumber there must, therefore, be an annual waste of about 

 1,000,000 cords, much of which is burned in incinerators, 

 The objection on the part of capitalists to building plants 

 to ran on mill waste is that lumber operations in any one 

 locality cannot guarantee through a continued period of 

 years a steady supply of wood waste sufficient to justify 

 the large investment recpiired for a sulphite mill. This 

 is an important argument for putting the lumber industry 

 on a permanent basis, and it is quite probable that the 

 saw mill of the future may be run as an adjunct to the 

 pulp mill, the better classes of logs being sawed, and the 

 poorer logs and mill waste being used for pulp. An 

 arrangement of this kind would also save a large amount 

 of wood now left by lumbermen in the forest in the form 

 of tops, and crooked and defective logs, which are well 

 suited for pulp but in some sections are not considered 

 merchantable for lumber. The regeneration of the 

 forests on a more productive basis is the most 

 important measure 

 for perpetuating the 

 paper industry in 

 the United States. 

 In the past, forests 

 have been cut, and 

 little provision has 

 been made for fu- 

 ture growth. In 

 the future, opera- 

 tions should be 

 conducted in such 

 a way as to se- 

 cure an increasing 

 reproduction 

 of species valuable 

 for lumber and 

 pulp. Fortunately, 

 such species as fir 

 and poplar are pro- 

 lific seeders and may, without difficulty, be repro- 

 duced naturally. Spruce may be reproduced under proper 

 methods of forest management, though with more diffi- 

 culty than is experienced in the case of the two species 

 just mentioned. As the cost of pulpwood increases, 

 investments in plantations, especially in the neighbor- 

 hood of pulp mills, will commend themselves. The pro- 

 duction of large quantities of wood near the mills will 

 greatly reduce the cost of lumbering and of transporta- 

 tion, as compared with the expense of operating remote 

 tracts that furnish a low yield of wood. Young, thrifty- 

 growing forests will produce yields scarcely imagined by 

 one who has been accustomed to deal exclusively with old 

 timber. 



Although some experiments in forestry by a few pulp 

 companies have been made on a small scale, no adequate 

 steps have been taken by the industry to perpetuate the 

 supplies of wood. Furthermore, no great anxiety seems 



A TYPICAL PULP AND PAPER MILL 



to exist about the future, although the scrapping of mil- 

 lions of dollars' worth of plants within a period of 10 or 

 20 years may be entailed. 



An expert who recently returned from Sweden, where 

 he had investigated the paper business for the Wrapping 

 Paper Manufacturers' Service Bureau, states in his report 

 that every sulphite mill which owns timber limits has a 

 most important branch known as the forestry department. 

 These mills employ technically trained foresters, prepare 

 very accurate figures in regard to the yearly growth of 

 their forests, and cut no more timber than grows each 

 year. Any wood used in excess of this yield is purchased 

 from Government limits and privately owned tracts. The 

 idea is not new, but it makes clear the desirability of 

 larger holdings in Northeastern United States to be 

 owned, some of them, by the pulp and paper industry, and 

 others by the National and State Governments, and all 

 managed upon this principle of limiting the cut to the 

 amount of the annual growth. In this connection it is 



encouraging to note 

 that the American 

 Paper and Pulp 

 Association has re- 

 cently issued a 

 pamphlet entitled 

 "Suggestions for a 

 National Forest 

 Policy with Special 

 Reference t o the 

 Pulp and Paper In- 

 dustry," in which 

 public acquisition 

 of forest lands and 

 more efficient fire 

 prevention are 

 especially advo- 

 cated. 



But it is to the 

 wood-using industries rather than to the lumber com- 

 panies that we must look for any serious efforts toward 

 the perpetuation of the national lumber supply. In the 

 same way, it is the publishers rather than the pulp com- 

 panies who must take it upon themselves to see that our 

 national pulp supplies are perpetuated. The newspapers 

 of the country have not always been far-sighted enough 

 to advocate forestry practice as being for the public wel- 

 fare. They must soon see that it is essential for the per- 

 petuation of their own industry as well as for the good of 

 the Nation as a whole. One of the first steps in this 

 direction should be the making of an accurate census of 

 the timber in the country suitable for use as pulpwood ; 

 for, as has been stated above, only rough guesses are at 

 present available. Such a survey would show that defi- 

 nite regions are available for the development of the pulp 

 and paper industry and what detailed measures should 

 be taken to perpetuate the forests. 



