Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1917-04-29


E1HE forest service of the ma
tionaI government is studying
the paper famine which now
q prevails over the world and
preparing to do what it can to re-
lieve it. 1t is making scientific ex-
periments on all kinds of pulp wood
in its ground-wood laboratories in
Wisconsin. and planning methods for
the use of new varieties of trees and
the elimination of waste. 1t is also
investigating the national forests with
the view to the foundation of a per-
manent paper supply industry in con-
nection with them. Within the past
week 1 have had talk with Mr.. H S.
Graves as to the work going on, and
especially as to the utilization 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. 1
have visited some of the largest mills
in this country and Canada. and have
also the latest information supplied
by the government laboratories. A
little more than a 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 factories in the United
States making such paper. and their
annual products were less than $4,000
900. Ten years later the product had
doubled, and the mills were over 200.
Since then there has been a steady in
crease. The demand for paper has far
exceeded 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 he porting
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 1 visited some of the
largest of the Canadian pulp factories
] went through one at the point where
Lake Superior and Lake Huron join.
The drop between the two lakes is
about twenty feet, and the water power
runs the mechanical mills. The estab-
lishment 1 visited was turning out
one hundred tons of wood pulp per
day, and l was told that each ton con-
tanned enough paper to cover city
pavement for a length of three miles
The pulp came out in the shape or 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 Pennsylvania railroad
from Washington to New York. and to
pave the New York Central railroad
from there on to far beyond Albany;
One years output of the mill would
furnish strip of pulp board long
enough to reach 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 l 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 foated down the river to Lake Su-
perior and brought in RATS to the
mill. There they are sawed into sticks.
bark is taken off by planning machines
run by the water power. and the sticks
are carried on endless belts to the
grinders. The grinding is done in lit
tie mills. about eight feet IN dlameter
and about eight feet in height Each
of these mills has big grindstone m
side it, and the machinery presses the
wood against these stones, which fly
around at the rate of 200 revolutions
per minute. They grind off the wood
and the dust falls down into the water
inside the mill. 1t forms sort OF
mush there, and when it comes out 1t
looks like chewed paper. 1t is now
wood pulp and has only to be purihed
and spread out into a sheet and DRIED
before it is ready for the market.
AS the pulp comes from the mill ~ is
forced through wire strainers and then
carried over wide belts of wool 1elt-
1t coats these belts and the particles
stick together. forming paper which
dries as 1t goes through different
machines and finally comes out in the
great rolls which supply the presses OF
daily newspapers
All of the newspapers of the onlteo
States are now made of such pulp
wood. and 80 per cent of all of the pa
DER we use contains a certain amount
of such pulp. At least rs per cent Is
made entirely from wood.
We are now using more than half OF
all the paper Of the world, and of late
the increase in consumption has been
far beyond the supply. The war in
Europe, by stopping the mills there,
has created an additional demand. and
some of orr newspapers have not been