Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1921-09-09
Would Cut Down
Waste in Printing
Business of America

| eliminating waste in the printing
/ business, as shown in the report Just
! issued by the Committee on Eliminn-
ton Of Waste in Industry of the
I American Engineering Council. is
one Of the most powerful arguments
ever put forth for a national forest,
says statement by the American
Forestry Association, which has
made It the occasion to call on the
/ World Press Congress which meets
In Honolulu in October to take some
action on the forestry question.
Upon what does the newspa per
! depend for exiStence?" saws the
statement. 1T depends upon paper
made from wood pulp. There are
about 300 daily newspapers in the
country. Our annual consumption
J of two million tons of newsprint q
! year means strip of paper as wide
as the regulation daily paper and
] about forty million miles long. Just
as Il measure of distance, remember
! that the sun is ninety two million
miles away. 1t would also make a
tWo-foot wide ribbon of newspaper
| around the world 1900 times.
| THE time is coming when the
economic law of necessity will bring
! our own publications to some sort of
1 retrenchment. The editors Of the
United States and of the World must
take up this question. Already more
than one-third of our pulpwood
comes from across the Canadian
! Border and Canada, profiting by our
mistakes, is now taking steps to for
, bid the cutting of timber at a rate
/ more npid than its growth That
4 means primarily that our annual i'm
/ portation of Canadian pulpwood has
! practically reached the maximum,
and for the other two-thirds at least
We will have to look after ourselves.
4 If we once squarely face the
/ facts. the solution of the problem
: will not be difficult II is estimated
! that about three million cords OF
wood per year are manufactured in
to paper for magazines and news
I papers. At ten cords per acre this
i would mean three hundred thousand
| acres. Surprising that it takes about
! forty to fifty years to grow good
pulpwtod spruce, and allowing for
possible loss by fire, wind. blight or
failure Of seeding, a tract Of thirty
thousand square miles planted with
forty successive crops Of timber.
each crop coming to maturity at one
year intervals, would under proper
care and management. furnish a
perpetual supply of pulpwood for
newsprint. This means an area a
! little smaller than the state of Ohio,
but represents less than onc-tenth
Of the area of our cut-Over lands
most of which are now almost en-
tirely unproductive.
There is no question but that a
perpetual supply of pulpwood for all
! needs is possible and practical
scheme. 1t will not. however, come
merely for the asking There must
be, first. proper national forestry
law with adequate provisions for fire
protection and government of refor-
eStation on a scale large enough to
demonstrate the economic soundness
Of the idea: second. every state must
adopt thorough going forestry prin-
cipics with provisions to protect
growing timber from cyorbitant
taxation; and, finally. with these
/; laws as q basis. the pulp and paper
! industry, together with all other
wood using Industries. must be made
to see that in practical reforestation
and conservation lies their only sal
walton. To accomplish these three