HOW UNITED STATES CAN MEET PULP-WOOD REQUIREMENTS. 53 
(Table 60.) Nearly all of this timber is pine, and mostly western yellow pine. 
The total drain upon the sulphate-pulp species probably reaches about 3^ 
million cords annually, and it exceeds the current growth six or seven times, for 
essentially the same reasons as those given in the case of the sulphite-mechanical 
pulp species. 
Under intensive forestry, however, it should be possible to grow annually in 
excess of 123^ million cords. Much of this will be needed and cut for saw tim- 
ber, but a large volume would undoubtedly be available for sulphate-pulp manu- 
facture from thinnings and defective logs and trees. Western yellow pine par- 
ticularly makes a very satisfactory wrapping paper. Under forest manage- 
ment it should not be difficult in the future, if not immediately, to secure from 
the pine stands of the Coast States any desirable part, or all, of the 773,000 cords 
of sulphate pulp wood now imported in one form or another from Canada and 
Europe, or in addition, to take care of the annual increase in requirements of 
110,000 cords for some years to come. 
ALASKA. 
Alaska, as already indicated, is one of the two outstanding regions with large 
virgin supplies of softwoods adapted to sulphite and mechanical pulp. As 
compared with the Pacific Coast States, Alaska has the advantage of practically 
pure stands of these species of pulp timber, lower stumpage prices, and cheaper 
power. It has the disadvantage of being considerably farther from the large 
paper markets, and of pioneer conditions which would tend to hamper the 
development of an industry. Ordinarily the pulp and paper industry has fol- 
lowed lumbering, and has either had to displace the sawmill through competition 
or to take the material which the sawmill left. In Alaska, however, cutting 
operations for lumber and other purposes are small, so that in this respect there 
would be a greater opportunity for the development of a dominant pulp and 
paper industry than in the Pacific Coast States. 
To insure the development of the pulp and paper industry on the basis of 
continuous and permanent supplies ample to meet requirements, the area of the 
two national forests in Alaska, to which this discussion is confined, has been 
divided into allotments or compartments. Each of these compartments is of 
such a size and character that with available timber resources and water power 
a pulp plant will be permanently supported and such additional timber furnished 
as may be needed by sawmills for local needs. Under this plan there can be no 
overdevelopment of manufacturing plants in relation to raw material. 
The forest itself forms the northernmost extension of the heavy coast forest 
of Washington and Oregon. In the western part of the area under consideration 
it merges with the interior forests of white and black spruce which extend entirely 
across the continent from the Atlantic. Sixty-five per cent of the 80 billion feet,' 
board measure, consists of western hemlock, already proved by actual use to be 
a satisfactory sulphite-pulp-wood species; and an additional 20 per cent or 
more consists of Sitka spruce, comparable in its properties for both mechanical 
and sulphite pulp with the various spruces of the eastern United States and 
Canada. While these species are suitable for construction and box material, 
general lumber requirements, piling, and similar purposes, and are being so 
used in increasing quantities, the general belief of those most familiar with the 
Alaskan forests is that their great future use will be for pulp and paper. This is 
especially true of the Tongass National Forest, in southeastern Alaska, which 
contains more than seven-eighths of the total stand. 
With due allowance for the probable cut into other products and with con- 
sideration of the timber below saw-timber size, these forests unquestionably 
