Milford chronicle., 1908-01-10
The Publisher Pays Much More
for His Stock Than lie Did
Last Year.

To-day there is a general com
plant among publishers that print
ing paper is constantly growing
dearer. In the Middle West many
local papers are raising their sub
scription price 50 per cent in order
to pay for the paper. From the
time when Gutenberg first used
movable type, made Of wood, to the
present day of metropolitan papers
some of which consume the produce
Of acres of spruce in a single edi-
ton, printing has in very large de-
gree depended upon the forest.
In the face of threatened short
age Of timber, the amount of wood
consumed each year for pulp has
increased since 1899 from millions
to g. million cords. The year 1906
marked an increase of o3, 900 cords
in the imports of pulpwood, the
highest average value per cord for
all kinds, and consumption great
er by 469,o53 cords than that of
any previous year.
Spruce, the wood from which in
1899 three-fourths of the pulp was
manufactured, is still the leading
wood, but it now produces a little
less than 70 per cent of the total.
How we'll spruce is suited to the
manufacture of pulp is shown by
the fact that during a period in
which the total quantity of wood
used has doubled and many new
woods have been introduced, the
proportion of spruce pulpwood has
remained nearly constant in spite of
the drains upon the spruce forests
for otherpurposes. During this time
three different woods, from widely
separated regions, have in turn held
the rank of leader in the lumber
supply.
Since 1899, poplar, which for
years was used in connection with
spruce to the exclusion of all other
paper woods, has increased in total
quantity less than 100, 900 cords, and
is now outranked by hemlock. Pine
balsam. and cottonwood are used i'll
much smaller amounts.
New York alone consumes each
year over a million and a quarter
cords of wood in the manufacture of
pulp, or more than twice as much
as Maine, which ranks next. Wis
consin, New Hampshire, Pennsyl-
vania, and Michigan follow in the
order given. Sixty per cent of the
wood used in New York was inn
ported from elsewhere, and even so
the supply appears to be waning,
since the total consumption for the
State shows a small decrease since
1905, whereas the other States named
have all increased their consump-
ton. Other States important in
the production of pulp are Mas
sachusetts, Minnesota, Ohio, Ore
gon, Vermont Virginia, and West
The average cost of pulp deliver
ed at the mill was S7.2I. The
total value of the wood consumed
in 1906 was $40, 400 900. The
chief item determining the price Of
paper is the cost of pulp. An ex-
ample of the increased price of pap
er is found in the case of a daily in
the Middle West, who recently paid
81 200 for a carload Ofpaper. The
same quantity and grade of paper
cost year ago but $500.
The chemical processes of paper
which better preserve the
wood fiber, are gaining over the
process. In 1899, 65
per cent of the wood was reduced
by the mechanical process in 1906,
less than so per cent.
All importations of wood for
pulp are from Canada, and compris1
ed, in 1906, 10000 cords, nearly
all of which was spruce. -Four and
a half million dollars worth of pulp
was imported in 1906, slight fall
ing off from 1905.
Circular 100 of the Forest Service
contains dicussion of the consump-
ton of pu1pwood in 1906, based on
statistics gathered by the Bureau of
the Census and the Forest Service.
The pamphlet can be had upon
to the Forester, United
States Department Of Agriculture,
Washington, D. C.