HOW UNITED STATES CAN MEET PULP-WOOD BEQUIREMEXTS. 5 
Extensive areas of idle forest lands are a public burden. As long as they remain 
idle, transportation facilities can not be supported, the taxes on productive 
property are increased, settlement is hampered, and social progress is retarded. 
The desirability of becoming independent of foreign countries for pulp wood, 
pulp, and paper rests fundamentally, however, upon the possibility of growing 
pulp wood and manufacturing pulp and paper more cheaply than foreign products 
can be imported. The feasibility of domestic production must in the last 
analysis rest upon cheaper products to the ultimate consumer. 
European pulp-wood supplies now come from cultivated forests. Canadian 
supplies will soon also have to be grown by forestry if they are to remain a factor 
of importance. Upon large areas in the United States suitable only for timber 
growing occur many species eminently satisfactory for pulp. The United States 
has on the whole much more favorable growing conditions than either eastern 
Canada or northern Europe, the main sources of our imports. We should there- 
fore be able to secure larger yields in shorter periods from our own land. Upon 
foreign-grown materials now and in the future, the American consumer must in 
general pay higher freights than from our own territory. We have forest land 
and pulp species in abundance, and in addition are more favorably situated 
than any other country in the world for the remaining essentials of paper making. 
Water power is available in large quantities. Coal deposits will furnish supple- 
mental power wherever needed. Such other materials as sulphur, caustic soda, 
limestone, and the bleaching chemicals may be secured within our borders. The 
alum and rosin needed for "sizing" and the clays for "loading" paper are all 
domestic products. Since timber is the only material used in pulp and paper 
making which may be lacking, it should be to the advantage of the final consumer 
in cheaper products to grow the timber and manufacture pulp and paper at 
home. Finally, the more nearly independent we can become the less likely we 
are to be subject either to dictated prices from outside sources or excessive prices 
resulting from world competition. 
For the period during which paper or its constituent materials can be obtained 
more cheaply by American consumers from foreign than domestic sources, their 
importation is a sound measure of forest conservation. They will eke out our 
diminishing supply of convertible pulp wood. But looking forward to the 
coming world-wide shortage of these materials, with its reactions upon cost and 
upon the policies of foreign nations, the only sure way to supply our future paper 
requirements abundantly and cheaply is to utilize our own natural advantages for 
producing them on American soil. 
Since the significance of all these considerations is magnified by the economic 
importance of the services which paper renders, this question is next discussed, 
CURRENT AMERICAN REQUIREMENTS: HOW THEY ARE 
SUPPLIED. 
CURRENT REQUIREMENTS AND THEIR IMPORTANCE. 
In 1922 the people of the United States consumed more than 8 million tons of 
paper, more than all other countries in the world combined. In the manufacture 
of this total the industries of the United States and of several other countries 
utilized about 5,847,000 tons of new wood pulp, which in turn was secured from 
about 9,148,000 cords of pulp wood. (Table 1.) In addition the United States 
reused in its own mills in 1919, the last year for which data are available, slightly 
in excess of 1,850,000 tons (Table 2) of waste paper, in which wood pulp con- 
stituted 85 per cent of the raw material. 
