Iron County record. [volume] (Cedar City, Utah) 1893-1982, 1914-04-03
BIG CONSUMPTION
OF WOOD pulp
Large Daily and Sunday Papers
Fast Depicting Forests of
United States.
SPRUCE SUBSTITUTE
NOW BEING SOUGHT.
Government Forest Service Active in
Search for New Woods, and in
Conducting Tests in Paper
Manufacture.

(From the Forest Service, U. s.
Department of Agriculture
Newspapers help in search for
pulp woods.
A recent issue of the New York
Herald is printed on paper made from
woods which have not been used here
tofore for news print paper.
The sheet which newspaper readers
hold in their hands each day is made
of wood. If one looks closely the
little wood fibers can be seen, espec-
tally in the margins where printing
does not obscure them. The larger
part of the wood so used is ground up,
while some of it is reduced by the &C
ton of chemicals. The chemical pulp
has the longer fibers and a certain
portion Of it is added to the ground
wood to give the finished paper the
required toughness.
Spruce the Best Pulp Wood
Spruce, abundant in the New Eng
land and Lake States and in Canada
has heretofore been the standard wood
for making news print paper and as
long as there was supply sufficient
to meet the needs of the paper indus
try there was no reason to seek sub
~stitutes. But heavy inroads have
been made on the spruce forests of
thA nj nf he TIoitaI taAa
in this day of great circulations and
large editions, especially of Sunday
papers with their many parts. On a
rough estimate, a newspaper with an
average circulation of sixty thousand
copies and an average edition of TWEEN
ty pages, uses each day the product of
about four acres of forest. When this
figure is multiplied by the great num-
her of newspapers published in the
United States, many of them with
much larger editions, and when this
-s-1<s.aar mIftipiieti by 1856; because
many papers are issued every day of
the year, it can be seen that the drain
upon the forests is enormous. Forest
ers say that even under the most APP
proved methods known to their profes-
sion, it could scarcely be expected
that spruce would be able to hold it's
own, but would need supplementing
by other material.
1t is but natural, therefore, that
paper manufacturers are looking for
new sources of supply which will
furnish an abundance of wood pulp,
at a price which will not be prohibi-
tive. Poplar and few other woods
are used, but they do not go very far.
Forest Service Seeks New Weeds
In the national forests there are
many woods considered inferior by
lumbermen. Yet they are available
for purchase at low rates and many
of the timber stands are readily ac-
cessible The forest service, in its
desire to utilize to the best advantage
all of the resources of the federal tim
Der holdings, has been seeking proper
uses for these trees and has expert
mented in making pulp from them at
it's pulp laboratory at Wausau, Wis
cousin, an auxiliary of the forest pro-
ducts laboratory at Madison. The
Wausau laboratory is equipped with
standard machinery and all expert
ments are carried out under conditions
which duplicate commercial practice
AS final test Of the value of some
Of these new woods under practical
conditions, arrangements were made
between the forest service and the
Herald to print some part of its edi-
ton. on paper made from various
woods that showed promise as sub.
stitutes for S, ruce. These woods
were ground at he Wausau labora-
tory; the product was then miYed
with the usual proportion of chemical
pulp and made into news print paper
rolls of which were sent to New York
for the experimental run.
Need of Practical Test.
The new woods must fulfil many con
ditions as to color, finish and strength
In these trial runs, most of the paper
is made from various western frs
which show considerable promise, but
the investigators do not consider theil
tests complete until they have subjec
ted the paper to actual printing con
ditions. They grow Throughout thu
mountain ranges of the west, partic
,,la,J,, In tba pacifc coast states