8 BULLETIN 1241, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
in the United States was imported, and there were periods of great scarcity during 
which the mills were unable, despite the most energetic measures, to obtain the 
rags needed to meet their requirements. This was reflected by serious paper 
shortages. During the Revolution American officers were often unable to obtain 
the insignificant amount of paper needed for orders. Newspapers were frequently 
published on paper of different colors and on sheets of different sizes, and editors 
were sometimes forced to print even the margins. Then and later colonial, State, 
and congressional legislative committees made special inquiries; there were a 
long series of appeals to the public to preserve rags for paper making, prizes were 
offered to stimulate research for other raw materials, and patents were issued for 
pulping cornstalks and many other materials. A process by which straw could 
be utilized for paper was perfected in 1825, but it was little used until Civil War 
requirements increased consumption by leaps and bounds. 
As in practically all early industry, paper manufacture was largely by hand. 
Until approximately 1825 man power was used except in the beating engines which 
were gradually introduced, and for these water supplied the power. The various 
types of machinery which make possible production on its present scale were 
introduced in primitive form between 1825 and the middle of the century, so 
that by 1850 paper consumed in the United States was very largely machine made. 
THE WOOD-PULP PERIOD. 
Although the soda and mechanical processes of making pulp from wood were 
introduced into the United States during the late sixties and the sulphite process 
was discovered in 1867, none of these processes was extensively used until after 
the expiration of patent control 17 years later. The first sulphite mill began 
operations in 1882 and the first sulphate mill as recenth r as 1908. A brief state- 
ment of the nature of the pulp processes will be helpful to the reader not thor- 
oughly familiar with pulp and paper manufacture. 
In the soda, the first of the three chemical processes introduced, chipped wood 
is cooked in a solution of sodium hydroxide. Under this process the comparatively 
short-fibered hardwoods, such as aspen, yellow poplar, basswood, and the gums, 
are reduced. Soda pulp is used almost exclusively in book and the fine papers, 
to give body. The mechanical, sometimes called the ground wood, process in- 
troduced about the same time is based upon an entirely different principle. It 
reduces such coniferous woods as the spruces and true firs by abrasion against a 
rapidly revolving stone. Mechanical pulp is used mostly to give body to news- 
print and similar papers, and because of its comparatively low cost and the large 
percentage used, helps to keep the prices of these papers at a low lev 
The sulphite was the second chemical process to come into use. It depends 
upon a cooking solution of bisulphite of lime and produces long-fibered pulp from 
such woods as the spruces, the true firs, and the hemlocks. This pulp is used to 
give the requisite strength to newsprint, book, and the fine papers. Sulphite 
finds, therefore, the most general use of any of the wood pulps. 
The third chemical process, the sulphate or kraft, is very recent in application. 
968 sodium hydroxide and sulphide in cooking, and from the hard pine-. 
larches, etc.. produces a very strong pulp, the standard use of which is for wrap- 
pi;'! paper, but which also is an Lmportanl constituent of boards. 
. : :i-' of the nature of the solution ordinarily used the soda and sulphate arc 
sometimes called the alkaline processes and the sulphite the acid The 
led pull) grades take their names from the particular process soda. 8 Mphate, 
i «■. '•;• mechanical— employed in making them. It is upon these four 
pulping pr that the growth of paper production in the wood-pulp period 
is b; 
