Expansion of the Forest Industries and Industrial 
Forestry 
With development of forestry programs and the regenera- 
tion of the second and third forests, the South has wit- 
nessed spectacular growth in the southern pulp and paper 
industry, together with a resurgence of the lumber indus- 
try and establishment of new southern pine plywood and 
other panel board industries. 
With the development of forestry programs 
and the regeneration of the second and third 
forests, the South experienced spectacular 
growth in the pulp and paper industry. Mills 
in the South now produce about 70 percent 
of the Nation’s woodpulp. 
The Pulp and Paper Industry 
Small amounts of woodpulp were produced in the South 
as early as 1909, when the Roanoke Rapids Pulp Manufac- 
turing Company made sulfite pulp for wrapping and other 
papers. In the following years, markets for pulp and paper 
products in the United States continued to expand steadily. 
Major improvements in technology of using southern pines 
and the sulfate process for pulp flowed from the work of 
investigators in the pulp industry and the Forest Service’s 
Forest Products Laboratory. In addition, the first forest sur- 
vey in the South in the early 1930’s showed that large sup- 
plies of pulpwood could be obtained from the second 
forest of the region. 
These factors, along with favorable conditions for water, 
power, labor, and transportation, made possible a major ex- 
pansion of the southern pulp and paper industry to a point 
where the South soon became the regional leader of this 
industry in the United States. By 1930 there were 15 south- 
em pulp mills; in 1985 there were 108. Pulp production in 
the South increased from about 781,000 tons in 1930 to 
some 38.6 million tons in 1984 (fig. 2.11 and app. table 
2.27)—about 70 percent of U.S. production in the latter 
year. 
Markets for pulp and paper products produced in the South 
have been especially strong for container board and a vari- 
ety of other brown papers. Research in production of news- 
print from southern pines, particularly studies conducted by 
C.H. Herty, also led to construction of a number of mills 
to produce newsprint from southern pines. In recent years, 
southern mills have been producing increasing amounts of 
bleached pulps for use in printing papers. 
Pine pulpwood has been the primary material used in south- 
ern pulp mills, but the industry has also used increasing 
amounts of hardwoods in such products as the corrugating 
medium of container board and in printing papers and 
rayon. Development of a semichemical process and a high- 
yield cold soda process through research at the Forest Prod- 
ucts Laboratory have made the methods for pulping hard- 
woods more efficient. By 1984, use of hardwoods had 
risen to some 31 percent of the round pulpwood harvested 
in the South (app. table 1.2). 
Among other technical developments was the introduction 
of sawlog debarkers that made possible the production from 
slabs and edgings of clean chips usable by pulp mills. 
Production of millions of tons of pulp chips from this other- 
wise waste material was equivalent to adding millions of 
acres of timberland to the resource base. 
7 
