66 BULLETIN 1241, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
American forests now supply only 49 per cent of the pulp wood required in 
our paper consumption, whereas as recently as 1899 the}- supplied 83 per cent. 
The increase in imports since 1910 has been almost entirely in pulp and paper. 
Pulp-wood imports, although of great importance, now constitute only 19 per 
cent of the pulp wood consumed in American mills and only 11 per cent of that 
required for all the paper we consume. Paper and pulp imports constitute an 
equivalent of 42 per cent of the pulp wood needed for our entire paper require- 
ments. About half of the pulp-wood imports are used for sulphite, three-tenths 
for mechanical, and the remainder for soda pulps. Newsprint, book, and wrap- 
ping papers absorb one-third, one-fourth, and one-eighth, respectively. 
American forests supply less than half of the pulp wood needed for all the 
sulphite, mechanical, and sulphate pulp we use, but four-fifths of that needed for 
soda pulp. Of what is needed for newsprint paper they furnish only one-third, 
of that for wrapping paper two-thirds, and of that for boards and book paper 
slightly more than half. 
Canada furnishes the pulp wood for 37 per cent of our entire paper require- 
ments, and about equally in the form of pulp wood, pulp, and paper. Thirty- 
seven per cent of our entire newsprint requirements are imported from Canada 
as paper — more than the amount of newsprint manufactured from domestic 
w T ood. Countries other than Canada supply 17 per cent of the pulp wood needed 
to meet our entire paper requirements, but four-fifths of this material is imported 
in pulp form. 
Seventy-eight per cent of the pulp wood now required consists of spruce, fir, 
and hemlock for sulphite and mechanical pulp, 14 per cent is pine for sulphate 
pulp, and the remainder is hardwoods for soda pulp. In part out of this con- 
centration in requirements has come a concentration of the pulp and paper 
industry in the spruce, fir, and hemlock forests of . the Middle Atlantic, New 
England, and Lake States. The inability of the forests of these regions to meet 
the demands of the pulp mills has led to imports of Canadian pulp wood, S5 per 
cent spruce and the remainder aspen. The Middle Atlantic States" use 73 per 
cent of the total imports and New York alone uses 57 per cent; 21 per cent is 
used in New England; and the rest goes to the Lake States. 
The forests of practically every region in the United States are being cut much 
more rapidly than they are being replaced by growth, and in most regions the 
original timber supplies have been greatly reduced. The regions from which 
pulp-wood supplies are now being chiefly secured fall within the latter class. 
This situation is the background of the problem of increasing the domestic pulp 
wood cut sufficiently to meet our requirements. 
THE PROBLEM. 
The most urgent phase of the pulp and paper problem of the immediate future 
is to secure annually an additional 870,000 cords ci" spruce, hemlock, and balsam, 
and 180,000 cords of aspen pulp wood from our own forests, to offset pulp-wood 
imports. Purely economic causes make this problem urgent, regardless of any 
other considerations or possible developments. Closely related to the pulp-wood 
import problem, and only a little less urgent, is the growing shortage of pulp tim- 
ber in nearly all of the Middle Atlantic, New England, and Lake States, which 
in itself musl be fared and met in the near future. The distribution of pulp- 
wood imports chieih to the Middle Atlantic States, particularly New York, and 
in Lesser amounts 1<> New England and the Lake States, is in itself an indication 
of the present shortage <>f local timber supplies. 
An importanl but Less urgent phase of the problem is to secure from American 
forests t he pulp wood required to offset presenl pulp and paper imports. Includ- 
ing the amounts indicated in the preceding paragraph, this would require a total 
