HOW UXITED STATES CAX MEET PULP- WOOD REQUIREMENTS. 11 
its product from the aspen 3 in the spruce forests. The character and the extent 
of the centralization need not be discussed further here but are shown graphically 
in Figure 3 and numerically in Table 8. 
This centralization, in fact overcentralization, intensifies the problem created 
by the' imports from other countries of pulp wood, pulp, and paper, and it is the 
chief factor in the situation which necessitates pulp-wood imports. Analyses of 
imports from foreign countries both of raw pulp wood and of manufactured 
pulp and paper will be made in the following sections. A general explanation 
here, however, of the complex situation that exists in pulp wood, pulp, and paper 
imports and in the combinations in paper manufacture of pulps derived from wood 
and from other materials may clarify the facts. 
We cut a large volume of domestic pulp wood, manufacture it into wood 
pulp, and then into paper. But we import a large amount of pulp wood each 
year from Canada, which is mixed with and follows the same course of manu- 
facture as our own. We also import a large amount of wood pulp each year 
from Canada and several north-European countries. . This imported pulp mingles 
with the product of home-grown timber and imported Canadian pulp wood in 
the manufacture of various so-called grades of paper in American mills. Still 
further, large aggregate paper imports from Canada and several European 
countries compete in the American markets with the product of American mills, 
which as previously indicated utilize both domestic and foreign raw materials. 
The chief grades of paper only — book, wrapping, boards, and newsprint — 
are considered in detail in this report. The four grades of wood pulp, combined in 
different proportions, make up or help to make up these and other grades. A 
large and rapidly growing use of old paper of all kinds (85 per cent wood) mingles 
with new pulp in various papers. The manufacture of distinct pulps and papers 
from raw materials other than wood and the combination of wood and nonwood 
pulps complicate production still further. Linen rags from foreign and cotton 
rags from home sources are, for example, mixed with sulphite and soda pulp 
in various fine papers. Straw, on the other hand, entirely native, is used in the 
manufacture of a special class of boards. Imported manila stock goes into special 
kinds of manila paper. Finally, we export varying amounts of a number of 
pulps and papers. These involved relationships may be traced in Figure 4. 
HOW PRESENT AND PAST REQUIREMENTS HAVE BEEN MET. 4 
Between 1889, the first year that wood-pulp production was reported, and 1922 
the manufacture of paper in the United States increased IS times while its con- 
sumption increased more than 20 times. American paper mills, in other words, 
were unable during this period to keep pace with the acceleration in consumption; 
imports of paper increased nearly 80 times in value and the difference between 
production and consumption has now reached about 1 million tons. But at 
the same time that American paper production was falling behind consumption 
American pulp mills, supplied though they were with imported as well as domestic 
wood, fell rapidly behind the demand of the paper mills, so that pulp imports, 
only a little more than 25,000 tons in 1889, had increased to .more than If million 
tons in 1922. And finally, the pulp mills in turn have had to meet their growing 
3 Aspen is used throughout this report for the species commonly known in th« pulp and paper industry 
as poplar. 
i T : ie data used in the analysis of our imports, outside of those available from census reports and Bureau 
of Foreign and Domestic Commerce reports of imports and exports, have been derived by use of such 
known relationships as that of cords in pulp wood to tons of pulp of the different grades and that of the 
average proportions of the different grades of pulp in various grades of paper. AVhile the resulting figures 
are not absolutely accurate, both current relationships and trends up to the present time are shown con- 
cretely and it is believed closely enough for all practical purposes. 
