58 CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION . 



stone in three places by hydraulic pressure, thus causing such friction that it 

 requires at least 300 horsepower for a single grinder. As a grinder driven 

 by 300 horsepower can produce only about four tons of first-class pulp 

 per day, representing about an equal number of cords of wood, it will be 

 readily understood that it is a modest mill that does not contain at least 

 twelve grinders, representing 3,600 horsepower. If these twelve grinders 

 were run every day in the year, excepting Sundays, they would require only 

 about eight million feet of logs to supply them. A corresponding deal mill 

 or a one-gang mill, such as is most commonly seen in this Province, would 

 consume about the same amount of logs, but would require only 150 horse- 

 power to run it. 



Some of the very sanguine preponents of the paper business assert that 

 it is a practical problem to grind wood by steam power. Here are a few 

 figures furnished me by men thoroughly skilled in the construction of steam 

 plants and the use of same, and on whose statements, I think, we can safely 

 rely. Their statement is that it will require five pounds of Nova Scotia 

 coal for each horsepower per hour to furnish the necessary steam. There- 

 fore, for a 300 horsepower grinder it will require 1,500 pounds of coal per 

 hour or 7^2 tons for each day of ten hours. Coal delivered at Chatham: 

 the past season has cost about $4.50 per ton. Therefore, it will be easy to 

 calculate that the cost of coal alone sufficient to grind a ton of pulp would 

 cost $8.44. Anyone can easily guess that the cost of maintaining a steam 

 plant of a size sufficient to produce 3,600 horsepower, plus the labor cost of 

 tending furnaces and converting the coal into steam, would add materially 

 to these figures. Ground pulp is selling in Nova Scotia during the present 

 winter season, where the price is better than in summer, because Baltic pulp 

 is not available in Britain during the winter season, at $17.50 per ton. 

 Thus you see that the cost of the power alone in a town like. Chatham would 

 be considerably in excess of. one-half the entire value of a ton of pulp after 

 it is manufactured. Suffice it to say that, so far as I know, there is not a 

 steam-driven, ground-wood pulp mill in existence in the whole United States 

 or Canada. 



Is there any argument necessary after the presentation of these facts, 

 which are so easy of demonstration, to convince any sane man that the 

 grinding of pulp by means of steam pow r er as a financial proposition is 

 simply absurd? This being the fact, we are next led to search for water 

 power, so that wood can be ground at minimum cost in order to compete 

 with others in the same business, and what do we find? Only a single spot 

 on the whole east or north shore where it would be even possible to turn 

 a half-dozen grinders, and this only a portion of the year. I refer to the 

 Falls of the Nepisiguit River. Would anybody think for a moment of 

 tying up the whole lumber business of this Province for the sake of one 

 small mill that could never grind over five or six million feet of logs an- 

 nually? On the St. John River there is a magnificent undeveloped power, 

 but the timber tributary that could be floated directly to the mill would 

 furnish an abundant supply for a long term of years, which precludes the 

 possibility of cutting pulp wood on the east shore and railing it to Grand 

 Falls. In Ontario and Quebec, and possibly in some parts of Nova Scotia 

 conditions are radically different from those in New Brunswick, but my ar- 

 gument is for this Province alone. 



