810 Canadian Forestry Journal, November, ipi6 



est products industries employ over one est opportunity for conservation is in 



million wage-earners and the products, the utilization of the other two-thirds, 



including re-manufacture, are valued This conservation means the manufac- 



roughly at two billion dollars annually, ture of a greater diversity of products 



These industries have been cutting and a development of uses or markets 



timber at three times the normal rate for these products. Briefly, that is the 



of growth, and it is estimated that al- purpose of the Forest Products Labo- 



ready 2,300 billion feet of the original ratory. 



5,200 billion have been consumed. Such ^^ ^ Fertilizer 

 a rapid rate of consumption carried 



with it the danger of a timber famine. The early practice of leaching wood 



which would be killing the goose that ashes as a part of the home soapmaking 



laid the golden egg. The timber fam- has disappeared, but it is now being 



ine meant a loss in national wealth re- revived as a source of potash to offset 



presented by this vast resource and an the shortage of fertilizer due to the 



industry employing ten per cent, of our war. 



wage-earners. In the Red River Valley of Texas 



-.., , -, ,. ,^ the Indians long ago used osage orange 



What Conservation Means. ^^^ ^^^-^^^ but it had never gained 



Conservation in the utilization of our commercial recognition as a dyewood. 



forest products has averted this end. Within the last year, however, the la- 



We are doubling our forest resources boratory has succeeded in getting it 



by making one tree do what two did into the market as a substitute for fus- 



before. To illustrate : tic which we import from Jamaica and 



The pulp mills and distillation plants Tehauntepec, and over a million dol- 



will use woods and mill waste; lars' worth of this dye is now being 



The lumberman will take twice as made by our American manufacturers, 



much material from the woods as for- and this from mill waste. 



merly; While making a chemical analysis 



The life of turpentine operations of western larch it was noticed that 



will be doubled by shallow chipping, there was an unusually high percent- 



etc, etc. age of water-soluble- material. This 



Such developments are no longer hy- was found to be "galactan." Now if 

 pothetical ; their practicability is actu- this material can be converted into a 

 ally being demonstrated ; for example, fermentable sugar, which seems prob- 

 one lumber company in the Lake States able, western larch would have a con- 

 region reports the removal of three siderable advantage over other woods 

 times the material from the forest and as a raw material for grain alcohol. The 

 the employment of twice the number laboratory has been working on the 

 of men formerly employed in produc- production of grain alcohol from wood 

 ing an equal amount of lumber. A for over five years, and has been suc- 

 lumber company in Pennsylvania — cessful in experimental work in raising 

 one of the most progressive in the the yield and lowering the cost of pro- 

 country — is securing from its waste a duction. The process has the advan- 

 gross return of $124 per acre, or thirty- tage in that it uses small material, un- 

 four per cent, of the total gross return selected, except that coniferous species 

 from its hemlock and hardwood logs. give higher yields than do hardwoods. 



More intensive manufacture provides and to most- mills producing waste in 



for industrial growth, which was pre- excess of their power requirements its 



viously provided for by expansion of disposal means an actual expense, 



lumbering operations. A natural in- The extraction of rosin from fat 



crease in the value of a tree will make wood has not been particularly suc- 



possible the practice of advanced for- cessful because of the excessive loss of 



estry methods, which will react by in- solvent and because the rosin is only 



creasing the products of the forest, medium grade. The wood is chipped 



thus completing the cycle. before it is extracted, and these chips 



With one-third of the tree coming after extraction were practically a 



through the mill as lumber, the great- waste- Experiments at the laboratory 



