UNLIMITED RAW MATERIAL FOR PAPER MAKING 119 



As other kinds of raw materials compete with pulp-wood so do other 

 kinds of wood compete with spruce. It is largely a question of the relative 

 cost although, of course, adaptability enters into consideration. This tendency 

 for one kind of wood to replace another is strikingly shown by comparing the 

 use of other kinds of wood than spruce in 1900 and 1909 respectively. In 

 1900 miscellaneous woods were only 24 per cent, but in 1909 they were 40 per 

 cent of the total consumption of pulp-wood. Thus spruce wood has no more 

 of a monopoly in the field of paper-making than pulp-wood in general has 

 over other kinds of fibres. 



Of all the paper made, approximately 40 per cent is made from rags, straw, 

 etc. ; 20 per cent from miscellaneous woods, and 40 per cent from spruce. 



Of the 40 per cent paper made from spruce about the only class which 

 is substantially made entirely of spruce is news print paper. Assuming 

 that all news print paper is made of spruce, it would take 1,600,000 cords or 

 about 66 per cent of all the spruce pulp-wood used, so that 72 per cent of 

 the paper made only requires about 33 per cent or one-third of the spruce used. 

 As a matter of fact other kinds of wood could be substituted very extensively 

 for this 33 per cent of the spruce used in making all other kinds of paper* 

 than news print. 



SPRUCE WOOD ONLY REQUIRED TO A LIMITED EXTENT 



There is certainly no question as to the sufficiency of the supply of rags, 

 straw, old papers, poplar wood, pine, hemlock, balsam, slab wood and mill 

 waste, etc., of which 72 per cent of the paper is or could be made. The 

 U. S. Department of Agriculture stated in 1908 that there are annually pro- 

 duced in the United States agricultural and industrial wastes suitable for 

 making 35,000,000 tons of paper. It also said "practically all woods may be 

 used for paper-making." 



Thus the raw material problem resolves itself into the very simple question 

 of the sufficiency of material for news print paper, as at present composed. It 

 was assumed above that it is all made of spruce, but this is not strictly so. 

 News print paper is composed, roughly speaking, of about 25 per cent sulphite 

 pulp which is made from pulp-wood by a chemical process, and 75 per cent of 

 ground wood-pulp which is made from pulp-wood by a mechanical process. 

 Sulphite pulp used to be made almost entirely from spruce, but in recent 

 years it has been found that hemlock, balsam, pine and several other kinds 

 of wood make very good sulphite pulp, and 40 per cent is now actually made 

 from such woods. There is very little doubt but that this 40 per cent will 

 go on increasing and leave the spruce more and more for making ground 

 wood-pulp. This is really the crux of the whole matter, as even today 54 per 

 cent of the spruce used is made into sulphite pulp. Ground wood-pulp thus 

 requires only 46 per cent of the spruce. This amounts to 1,124,000 cords 

 per annum, and of this news print paper requires 1,000,000 cords, assuming 

 that the ground wood-pulp is made wholly of spruce. In practice from 10 

 to 20 per cent of other kinds of wood are mixed with the spruce. Whether 

 this percentage can be materially increased in future, as the result of 



