HOW UNITED STATES CAN MEET PULP-WOOD REQUIREMENTS. 65 
domestic hardwoods at least during the stringent period of readjustment while 
growth of the softwood forests is being brought to a maximum. The greater the 
spruce shortage the greater will be the incentive to turn to this process or to 
develop one which would accomplish the same purpose. The Forest Service proc- 
ess promises also to make pulp from pine available as a substitute for sulphite. 
It might also, therefore, with its low power requirements, open up new regions of 
the United States, like the southern pineries, as potential areas for the develop- 
ment of th& newsprint industry. 
Whether this particular investigation works out commercially in accordance 
with the promise of laboratory tests or not, it at least serves as an indication of 
the possibilities of new or modified pulp processes. This indication and the 
critical need of the industry are ample justification for a large amount of research 
having the same objective. Some such development may well be the chief 
means of offsetting any pulp-wood deficit to our present industry until increased 
amounts can be grown. 
Forest Service investigations have further shown the possibility of substituting 
bleached sulphate pulp made from the pines for bleached sulphite pulp made 
from spruce. The process is now in commercial use and more general use is 
possible. Unbleached sulphate pulp could replace much of the unbleached 
sulphite pulp now used in wrapping papers and boards. Potentially over 1 
million cords of spruce could be released by such replacements. 
For obvious reasons it is impossible to give a concrete sum total of how much 
this varied group of essential supplementary measures might at any future time 
decrease the demand on the forest for pulp wood under present manufacturing 
requirements, or how much additional pulp wood they might supply. But it is 
clear that in time the total could easily reach several million cords a year. In that 
case with forest management as a foundation it will easily be possible to supply 
from domestic materials all the future paper requirements of the United States. 
CONCLUSION. 
OUTSTANDING FINDINGS. 
The outstanding findings of this inquiry into the pulp and paper situation 
are that: 
The question of adequate present and future pulp-wood supplies is an impor- 
tant phase of the national timber supply problem, which is one of the most 
important problems now demanding solution in the United States. 
There are outstanding reasons for creating a permanent domestic pulp and 
paper industry which can meet our entire needs, founded on home-grown timber. 
1 n the long run this will insure cheaper products to the ultimate consumer than 
can be obtained from foreign countries. The high productive capacity of our 
forest soils, and abundant supplies of other materials than wood essential in 
pulp and paper manufacture, should make cheaper products entirely feasible. 
American paper requirements have nearly quadrupled since 1899 and now 
exceed 8 million tons a year. They constituted 56 per cent of the world's paper 
consumption in 1920. Our per capita consumption is double that of any other 
country. 
The enormous growth of paper production and consumption during the past 
half century has been based upon wood, of which the amount now used exceeds 
several times that of all other materials together. The paper now consumed in 
the United States requires 9,148,000 cords of wood. All available informa'tion 
indicates that the supremacy of wood as the chief pulp material will continue. 
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