Canadian Forestry Journal, November, ipi6 



809 



New Ways of Taking Dollars from 



Forest Waste 



How Forest Possessions Are Being Increased by Making 

 One Tree Do What Two Did B^ore 



By Frank J. Hallauer, 



In Charge, Section of Review, Forest Product Laboratory, Madison, Wis., 



U. S. A. 



(In view of the excellent work being 

 accomplished by the Forest Products 

 Laboratories at Montreal, the follow- 

 ing article describing the far-reaching 

 activities of the Forest Products Labo- 

 ratory at Madison, Wisconsin, will be 

 of great interest to our readers. — Ed. 



The press is almost daily calling at- 

 tention to what jiecessity and science 

 are doing toward the development of 

 forest products abroad, products neces- 

 sary for feeding and clotTiing the peo- 

 ple, for safeguarding public health, hos- 

 pital supplies and ammunition for car- 

 rying on the war. The advantage of 

 the publicity which the war has given 

 to these developments lies in the fact 

 that we will have a greater apprecia- 

 tion for the possibilities in our own for- 

 est resources. It will probably be a 

 surprise to most people to learn that no 

 country, with the exception of Ger- 

 many, has made such a systematic ef- 

 fort at developing her forest resources 

 as has the United States. The Forests 

 Products Laboratory at Madison. Wis- 

 consin, established in 1910 by the For- 

 est Service of the United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture, in co-opera- 

 tion with the University of Wisconsin, 

 was the first of its kind in the world. 



Wood Uses in War. 



Abnormal conditions have aroused 

 new interest in some lines of forest pro- 

 ducts, including the older products such 



as charcoal, acetone, etc. Charcoal is 

 used in the manufacture of black pow- 

 ders and in driving bullets from shrap- 

 nel. The successful use of nitrocellu- 

 lose powders depends upon a solvent 

 which will probably gelatinize the ni- 

 trated fibres, and all the acetone em- 

 ployed as a solvent is made from acetic 

 acid, a product of hardwood distilla- 

 tion. Great Britain is dependent upon 

 the United States for acetone in pro- 

 ducing her cordite. Black walnut has 

 been the standard gunstock, and the 

 demand has so nearly exhausted our 

 supply that other woods, notably birch, 

 are being substituted. There is also 

 complaint of a shortage of willow for 

 wooden legs. 



Even in times of so-called peace we 

 have battles to fight in which we are 

 dependent upon forest products. Dis- 

 infectants have found their place in the 

 sun as necessities of life, at least hu- 

 man life as against some other forms of 

 life, and it is worth while to point out 

 that pure wood alcohol is the only sub- 

 stance which can be converted on a 

 commercial scale into formaldehyde, 

 which is used universally for disinfec- 

 tion against such contagious diseases 

 as smallpox, scarlet fever, diphtheria 

 and tuberculosis. It is also used to 

 prevent crop diseases by disinfecting 

 the seeds. 



Forests are of most immediate im- 

 portance, however, as a source of raw 

 material for our industries- Our for- 



