112 The Forest Products Laboratory 



the kindly sarcasm of tlie Kipling humor disapx^ears, and we are con- 

 fronted with a question of vast importance for our consideration and 

 action. 



The importance of the broad problem would possibly be more 

 sharply recognized if we view the situation from a somewhat less altru- 

 istic and international standpoint and consider only the TOO million 

 people within the borders of the United States. Consider for a 

 moment the extent to which forest products enter into the comforts, 

 conveniences and pleasures of many, if not all, of this vast multitude 

 of peoi^le. You rise in the morning from your wooden bed and walk 

 about on the wooden floor of your wooden home; you bathe with soap 

 probably containing or produced in part with a product from wood, 

 annoint your face with a lotion containing alcohol very likelv pro- 

 duced from wood paste, put on your hose manufactin-ed from M-ood 

 libre, step into your leather slioes requiring tannin from wood for 

 their manufacture, and then proceed to breakfast where you sit upon 

 a wooden chair, in front of a wooden table and read the daily news 

 from a paper made of wood pulp, printed with ink manufactured from 

 a forest product, and received over telegraph lines supported by 

 wooden poles. If reasonably prosperous, you now journey to your 

 office in an automobile with wooden spokes in the wheels, probal)ly 

 travel at least part of the way over a M^ooden pavement and finally 

 settle yourself in your office surrounded by wooden trimmings and 

 furniture and dig into the daily letters and reports which are again 

 dependent upon the supply of wood pulp paper. If, by chance, you 

 have occasion to travel to Madison to attend the celebration of the 

 Forest Products Laboratory you board a wooden railroad car (or at 

 least one made to appear like wood) and travel over tracks supported 

 by wooden cross-ties. The food which you eat, the clothes which you 

 wear, the materials and supplies necessary for the comforts of your 

 home and the conduct of your business, all are received in containers, 

 some of wood and some of fibre but practically all of forest products. 



These accustomed comforts and privileges of existence are de- 

 pendent upon a very wide variety of industries, dependent to greater 

 or less degree upon forest products. These supply useful and neces- 

 sary occupation to some million or more people. They include twenty 

 per cent of the 276,000 manufacturing plants in the country. 



