1060 



Canadian Forestry Journal, April, 1917 



be discarded when soiled, an ad- 

 vantage to the soldier from the stand- 

 point of hygiene. The Germans and 

 Austrians, mainly the poorer classes 

 of the civilian population, use paper 

 vests, socks, and handkerchiefs.. Blan- 

 kets and coats are padded with cellu- 

 lose wadding. So many paper ar- 

 ticles, in fact, are produced for the 

 comfort of the people of Germany 

 and Austria as to lead the Socialist 

 organ, Vorwaerts, to declare, "To be 

 without wood is almost as bad as 

 being without bread." 



To insure the presence of every 

 factor that tends to eventual success, 

 a country at war needs to maintain 

 its economic conditions as nearly as 

 possible at their normal level. Pro- 

 ducts of the forest play an important 

 part in many peaceful industries 

 which must be kept going in war time. 



Methyl alcohol, the other product 

 besides acetic acid obtained from the 

 destructive distillation of hardwoods, 

 has a multitude of uses. For one 

 thing, it is essential in the manu- 

 facture of many medical preparations. 

 For another, it is employed in. the 

 making of aniline dyes, the scarcity 

 of which is being felt throughout the 

 world. It is the source, also, of 

 formaldehyde, one of the safest and 

 most efficient antiseptics known, for 

 the manufacture of which large quan- 

 tities of wood alcohol are exported 

 to Europe. 



Making Turpentine 



The longleaf pine forests of the 

 South furnish 90 per cent, of the 

 world's supply of turpentine and 

 resin. In normal times turpentine 

 is used mainly as a solvent in the 

 arts. It is entirely possible, how- 

 ever, should the need arise, to make 

 from turpentine a synthetic camphor 

 as good for practical purposes as the 

 natural product. In the event of 

 the blockade of the Pacific Coast, 

 this should be the means of preserving 

 our celluloid industry, which now 

 consumes the greater part of the 

 5,000,000 pounds of Japanese cam- 

 phor imported annually. 



Resin, the use of which in shrapnel 

 has already been mentioned, is em- 

 ployed mainly in the manufacture of 



cheap soaps and as a size for paper. 

 So acute has become the scarcity of 

 resin in Germany that the Prussian 

 Minister of Agriculture has suggested 

 such measures for increasing the sup- 

 ply within the empire as distilling 

 resinous wood and collecting the 

 oleoresin which exudes from trees 

 peeled by deer. Prices being paid 

 for resin by the Central Powers are 

 almost fabulous. Curiously enough, 

 a substitute for paper size, recently 

 proposed by a German scientist, has 

 wood tar as its base. 



Casualties in Papers 



In connection with the use of resin 

 for paper should be mentioned the 

 fact that in time of war the demand on 

 the forests for print papers deserves 

 serious consideration. Of the 6,000 

 newspapers and periodicals in Ger- 

 many and the 3,000 in Austria at 

 the beginning of the war, it is esti- 

 mated that some 1,100 of the German 

 and 900 of the Austrian have siiice 

 suspended publication either through 

 inal3ility to obtain paper or because 

 of its prohibitive price. Germany 

 has always imported large quantities 

 of pulp wood from Sweden and 

 Russia, so that cessation of importa- 

 tion of Russian pulp wood and Am- 

 erican resin is a partial cause of the 

 trouble. On the other hand, Ger- 

 man war literature has been augment- 

 ed by the 7,000 books and pamphlets 

 since beginning of hostilities; and it 

 is the invariable rule in all countries 

 that the demand for newspapers and 

 periodicals of all kinds increases 

 enormously in a time of national 

 crisis. The total daily circulation of 

 French newspapers before the war, 

 for example, amounted to approxi- 

 mately 7,000,000 copies. Their cir- 

 culation has now increased to 15,- 

 000,000 daily, in spite of the suspen- 

 sion of a number of journals. The 

 bulk of print papers is made from 

 spruce and balsam fir. Experiments 

 at the Madison Laboratory of the 

 Forest Service have shown, however, 

 that satisfactory newsprint paper can 

 be made from some seven or eight 

 other American woods, which places 

 the United States in a position of 

 preparedness, at least so far as the 

 production of paper is concerned. 



