48 BULLETIN 1241, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
present pulp-wood imports of S00,000 to 900,000 cords until the rate of timber 
growth can be increased through forest management. An enlargement to reduce 
pulp and paper imports or an expansion to cover in whole or in part the normal 
future growth in our requirements would be still more out of the question. Unless 
temporary relief can be secured through new pulping processes, a reduction of the 
cut is probable or certain in several of the States within a relatively few years 
under the most favorable conditions which can be anticipated. 
To produce at home the pulp and paper now imported, and probably in part at 
least to absorb pulp-wood imports, it will therefore be absolutely necessary to 
turn to new regions. The regions which must receive first consideration are those 
which can furnish large quantities of spruce, fir, and hemlock, since upon these 
78 per cent of our requirements depend. There will be great advantages in being 
able to go to regions with virgin timber supplies which can support an industry 
while forest production is being got under way. Two regions, Alaska and the 
three Pacific-Coast States — Washington, Oregon, and California — offer excep- 
tional opportunities in this respect. Almost any new region may incidentally 
involve the solution of relatively minor technical difficulties as a phase of the 
development of large new industries. 
The opportunity in the Pacific-Coast States for the development of a greatly 
enlarged sulphite and mechanical-pulp industry is based upon supplies of virgin 
spruce, fir, 9 and hemlock much larger than in any Other forest region of the United 
States. Still larger stands of pine afford a similar opportunity to increase the pro- 
duction of sulphate pulp and the grades of paper, such as wrapping and boards, of 
which it forms a part. The three States contain a very large and well-developed 
lumber industry, which is still expanding rapidly, so that any enlargement of a 
pulp industry must, to some extent at least, compete with other use of timber. 
While the national forests of the coast States contain large amounts of timber, 
still more is in private ownership. 
The Pacific Coast States contain of all species about half of the remaining saw 
timber of the United States. They contain about one-fourth of the stand of 
pulp species in cords. More than one-third of the total stand of these States, or 
nearly 900 million cords (Table 60), consists of pulp species, and a little more 
than 400 million cords of the pulp species are suitable for sulphite and mechanical 
pulp, while all of the remainder is suitable for sulphate. 
It was estimated in 1920, in the report on Senate Resolution 311, that the total 
drain on the forests of this region exceeded replacement by growth by about 
three and one-half times. This is partly due to the large cut, supplemented by 
fire and disease, and partly also to relatively large stands of virgin timber, in 
which "such growth as occurs is offset by the deterioration of the old trees. Utiliza- 
tion for lumber still leads by far all other forms, probably constituting 95 per cent 
of the total cut. Washington has, in fact, led the country in volume of lumber 
cut since and including 1905, with the exception of one year. 
SPRUCE-FIR-HEMLOCK PULP WOOD FOU SULPHITE AM) MECHANICAL PULP. 
Half of the 400 million cords of sulphite-mechanical pulp timbers is western 
hemlock, and the remainder Sitka spruce and various true firs, obviously not 
including Douglas fir. The hemlock and spruce occur almost entirely in Wash- 
ington and Oregon, the fir in all three* States. Sitka spruce occupies a relatively 
Bmall area on or near the Coast. Hemlock, while sometimes in pure stands, 
ordinarily occurs in mixture with spruce or frequently with Douglas fir. On 
the high slopes () f both the Cascades and the Sierras are pure stands of various 
firs, but ordinarily this group of species is found with other trees in practically 
all of the types of the region. The scattered manner in which some oi the trees 
OCCUr, the inaccessibility of a part of the stand, and the loss of some of the mate- 
but not the species known as Douglas fir, 
