Evening capital news. (Boise, Idaho) 1901-1927, 1917-04-29

ments on all kinds of pulp wood III It's
groundwork laboratories in Wisconsin, and
planning methods for the use of new vari-
cites Of trees and the elimination OF waste
1t is also Investigating the national forests
with the view to the foundation Of perm
anent paper supply industry in connection
with them Within the past week | have
had talk with H. S. Graves as to the work
going on, and especially as to the utiliza-
ton of the forests of Alaska for wood pulp
and news print.
First, let me tell you something as to
how trees are made into paper have visit
ed some of the largest mills in this country
and Canada and have also the latest in
formation supplied by 1.-THE government lab
oratories A little more than generation
ago paper was made almost altogether Of
rags Then ground wood was mixed with
the rag pulp and used as filler, and still
later they began to make paper OF ground
wood alone. About twenty-five years ago
there were only something like eighty fac
tories in the United States making such
paper, and their annual products were less
than $5,OOO,OOO. Ten years later the pro-
duct had doubled, and the mills We're over
200 Since then there has been steady in
crease. The demand for paper has far ex-
ceeded the supplies of our own mills, and
we have been going outside the United
States for our wood pulp and pulp wood
We have been importing paper and pulp
to the amount of many million dollars, and
a large amount of the imports have come
from Canada, which has some of the best
wood pulp mills in the world.
Not long ago l visited some of the larg-
est of the Canadian pulp factories. I went
through one at the point where Lake Super
ior and Lake Huron join. The drop be-
tween the two lakes is about twenty feet,
and the water power runs the mechanical
mills. The establishment | visited was turn
ing out one hundred tons of wood pulp per
day, and | was told that each ton contained
enough paper to cover city pavement for
length of three miles. The pulp came out
in the shape of a sheet of cardboard about
two yards wide, rolled up like carpet or
mating, and the days output OF the mill
would cover every sidewalk in Washington
city and leave enough over to make white
carpet on the chief streets of Boston. 1t
would in fact, make strip long enough to
cover the railroad tracks of the Pennsyl-
vania railroad from Washington to New
York, and to pave the New York Central
railroad from there on to far beyond Al
bany. One years output of the mill would
furnish strip of pulp board long enough to
each four times around the world at the
equator, and have enough left to extend
across our continent and back again. When
one remembers that there are hundreds of
such mills he has an idea of the amount of
wood that is being turned into paper.
During my stay | watched the process
The material was spruce. The trees are
cut in the winter far away in the forests,
and in the spring the logs are floated down
the river to Lake Superior and brought in
RATS to the mill. There they are sawed in
to sticks, the size of kitchen stove wood.
The bark is taken off by planning machines
run by the water power, and the sticks
are carried on endless belts to the grinders.
Fhe grinding is done in little mills, about
eight feet in diameter and about eight feet
in height. Each OF these mills has big
grindstone inside it, and the machinery
presses the wood against these stones.
which fly around at the rate of 200 revolu-
tons per minute. They grind off the wood
and the dust falls down into the water in
side the mill. 1t forms sort of mush there.
and when it comes out it looks like chewed
paper. 1t is now wood pulp and has only
to be purified and spread out into a sheet