32 BULLETIN 1241, IT. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
of wood. Furthermore, paper made from cotton-linter pulp is slightly different 
in texture and reaction and requires different treatment in manufacture. 
The use of bagasse, which is the waste from cane-sugar mills, is relatively 
recent and is confined chiefly to the manufacture of heavy boards. Many 
materials, such as kelp, cornstalks, the fibrous waste from other industries, a 
long list of different plants, and the soft and fibrous minerals, have been tried 
for paper, but practically all have been rejected, at least for large-scale produc- 
tion. Cost primarily and products differing slightly or greatly in character 
from those already in use have been responsible. 
The use of the non wood-pulp materials has increased slowly; that of wood 
very rapidly, in spite of the constantly rising price of pulp wood, at times to 
levels seemingly prohibitive. The high price of pulp wood of 1920, which in 
many cases exceeded $30 per cord, still proved to be below the limit which would 
allow other materials to compete in large quantities. Timber can be grown in 
large volume, in several regions, for much less than this. Any great use of 
materials other than wood except for special products or in regions where wood 
is difficult to obtain and extremely high priced seems improbable in the light 
of past experience and present knowledge. 
PROBABLE FUTURE PULP-WOOD REQUIREMENTS. 
Since we shall, in the future, probably have to depend chiefly upon pulp wood 
as the raw material for paper, it is hardly conceivable that without the most 
drastic economies we shall ever need less than the present requirements of 
9,148,000 cords. At the other extreme, if present conversion factors still hold, 
a paper consumption in 1950 of 13 f million tons, as indicated by Figure 21, 
would probably mean in the neighborhood of 15 or 16 million cords of pulp wood. 
The total would be materially influenced by such factors as the increased or 
decreased use of waste paper, almost certainly the former, and the higher pulp 
yields which may be secured through improvement of the chemical processes. 
Utilization of logging and sawmill waste would reduce the demand upon the 
forest correspondingly. 
While 15 million cords may be an excessive estimate for as early a date as 
1950, it is not too large a total on which to base plans for future forest growth. 
If requirements have not reached 15 million cords by 1950, it is likely that they 
will thereafter. Any part of it which may not be needed for pulp will certainly 
be in demand for other products. 
Fifteen million cords is, therefore, taken as a reasonable annual production to 
which we should attempt to bring our pulp-wood supplies within the next two 
or three decades. If present ratios of utilization continue, nearly 12 million 
cords of the total would need to be of spruce, fir, and hemlock, 2 million cords 
of pine, and a little more than 1 million cords of various hardwoods. 
There still remains the problem created by the concentration of the industry in 
limited regions where for many years the timber supplies have been cut so heavily 
for lumber, and more recently for pulp wood, that they are now much reduced. 
But the discussion of this phase is so involved in the possibility and ways and 
means of solution of the entire problem that it is incorporated in the succeeding 
section. 
