20 MISC. PUBLICATION 162, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
than 1414 million tons, or 225 pounds for every man, woman, and 
child in the country. This amount of paper was equivalent to more 
than 15 million cords of pulpwood. 
The paper industry is distributed in 37 States. It was first estab- 
lished in the Northeast, where today a large part of our paper 
products is manufactured. From there, however, the industry has 
spread to the Lake States, the Central States, the Pacific coast, and 
in recent years throughout the South, from Virginia to Texas. 
There are several reasons for this expansion of the pulp and paper 
industry in the Southern States. For one thing the supply of 
Northern pulping woods is steadily diminishing. There has also 
been an increased need for that rough and fibrous product known 
as kraft paper, for which Southern pine pulp is extensively used. 
Southern pines can be cheaply pulped, and the South has an avail- 
able supply of cheap wood, plenty of water, abundant labor, and 
an all-year working climate, all of which are favorable to the ex- 
tensive development of the industry. 
Another product of wood pulp is rayon, that soft silky material 
which within the last few years has come into extensive use as a 
substitute for silk. It is made from some form of plant cellulose, 
preferably cotton or wood, but at present more than 60 percent of 
the rayon produced is said to come from wood cellulose. In the 
manufacture of rayon the cellulose is modified by various chemicals, 
which differ with the process employed, and the thick sirupy solu- 
tion resulting is forced through minute apertures corresponding 
to the spinnerets of the silk worm. The fine threads, or filaments, 
coming through these openings are coagulated either in a fixing bath 
or by a process of evaporation, and several of them formed sim- 
ultaneously are twisted into the strand for spinning. The annual 
production of rayon now amounts to about 320 million pounds. 
From wood pulp also comes much of that widely used transparent 
wrapping known as cellophane. Like paper and rayon it is a cellu- 
lost product, and its manufacture is similar to that of rayon, except 
that the viscous solution is forced through a narrow slot. 
Various other products are made by combining certain chemicals 
with sawdust or wood flour. These are known as plastics and are 
gaining in use daily. Fountain pens, telephone parts, radio and 
automobile trimmings, combs, and a thousand other articles are 
being made of plastics. | 
After wood, the most important forest products are perhaps tur- 
pentine and rosin. They are obtained by the distillation of the 
eum that exudes from the longleaf and slash pines of the South. 
The gum is drained from the trees and carried to a still, where it 
is cooked in closed iron retorts. The turpentine is given off in the 
form of volatile oils, which are collected and condensed in a con- 
densing worm. The rosin is the part of the gum left after the 
turpentine has been distilled off. The name “naval stores” was given 
these products because for many years they were used chiefly in 
shipbuilding. Naval stores now serve numerous other purposes 
and yield raw materials worth from 40 to 50 million dollars a year. 
Not so valuable commercially, but with a domestic importance 
all their own, are the sugar and sirup made from the sap of the 
sugar maple and its close relative, the black maple. The trees are 
