Oils and Fats. 



Importance of the Industry. 



After all is said and done concerning 

 any industrial enterprise, agricultural 

 or otherwise, the question arises, " Does 

 it pay?" As regards the coconut in- 

 dustry in Laguna and Tayabas the 

 answer is, Yes, it is already paying— it 



422 [MAY, 1909. 



is the source of the wealth of these 

 two provinces. 



With the expansion of the coconut 

 industry, continued planting of the 

 young trees, and intelligent care of the 

 groves, Languna and Tayabas have 

 indeed a bright agricultural future. - 

 Philippine Agricultural Review, Vol. I. 

 No. 12, December. 1908. 



FIBRES. 



NEW FIBRES FOR PAPER. 



By William Raitt. 



The scarcity of paper-making material, 

 which keen observers have seen approach- 

 ing for many years, is now an accepted 

 fact. The position can perhaps be best 

 indicated by quoting the remarks of 

 Lord Northcliffe. the Chairman of the 

 great Harms worth group of publishing 

 enterprises, at a recent meeting of his 

 shareholders. 



"It is no secret that the whole world 

 that lives by paper and print is clouded 

 by the imminent approach of a rise in 

 the price of paper. I have just seen a 

 list of neAVspapers in the United States 

 that have been obliged to double their 

 price, and another list of those that 

 instead of doubling their price, have 

 reduced their size. This rise in price of 

 our raw material, we know to be chieily 

 owing to the depletion of the world's 

 supply of the spruce tree from which 

 this class of paper is made. This 

 augmentation in the price of paper is 

 caused by the scarcity of a material that 

 takes at least thirty years to grow, and 

 is a much more serious form of famine 

 than that where an article is concerned 

 Avhich can be grown in a year or two.'' 



The ' world that lives by paper and 

 print ' is therefore once again face to 

 face with a recurrence of what has ever 

 been its chief difficulty,— the sufficiency 

 and permanence of an adequate supply 

 of raw material. The laet crisis of the 

 kind was about 1875 when the rapidly- 

 growing requirements outran the supply 

 of Esparto, which for twenty years 

 previously had been the staple material 

 for print and newspaper. Woodpulp 

 arrived just in time to save the situa- 

 tion. It introduced a supply so plentiful 

 and so cheap that it seemed as if at last 

 an inexhaustible source had been tapped, 

 and but few foresaw the inevitable 

 result of cheapness plus the rapidly 

 growing demand of education and 

 culture, upon an article which, as Lord 

 Northcliffe remarks, takes at least 

 thirty years to produce. Woodpulp 



brought the cost of ordinary newspaper 

 down from 5 pence per pound in 1870 to 

 a penny farthing in 1900. At the same 

 time an enormous increase in the reading 

 public was taking place. The combined 

 result is that whereas in 1870 the World's 

 Annual product of paper was about two 

 million tons, it is now eight millions, 

 and is growing at the rate of 25% every 

 ten years. Of this eight millions, six 

 and a half is produced from wood. Such 

 an enormous advance on the modest 

 requirements of forty years ago has 

 had simply disastrous effects on the 

 forests of Northern Europe and America, 

 Whole countries, whole states, have 

 gone galloping down the insatiable maw 

 of the cheap press, until we have now 

 arrived at this state of affairs :— In the 

 U. S. A. exhaustion so complete that 

 the mills there are now importing 

 supplies of wood from Canada, at a cost 

 of 50% to 70%, in advance of values pre- 

 vailing when they had forests of their 

 own to draw from. In Canada there is 

 still plenty of wood in the back blocks, 

 which Canada means to keep, having 

 taken warning in time from the fate of 

 her neighbour, and she has embarked on 

 a restrictive policy which aims at reserv- 

 ing her forests for future timber supply 

 rather than for present paper supply. 

 In Northern Europe, deforestation so 

 huge, that forests are now at great 

 distances from mills and ports, with 

 consequent scarcity and increase of cost, 

 and (as a bye-product of this destruction) 

 a great falling off in the waterpower 

 with which they manufacture the pulp. 

 For the present, the net result is a 

 stoppage of expansion, a scarcity of 

 supply and a rise in price. For the 

 future, it means a condition of positive 

 famine, with a tremendous curtailment 

 of publishing enterprise, unless a new 

 source of raw material speedily makes 

 itself manifest. Nothing further can be 

 hoped from wood. It has reached its 

 limit, and the nations of the world will 

 rise up in wrath against any attempt to 

 further rob them of one of their most 

 valuable reserves of capital wealth, 



