The Suitability of Some California Grown Eucalypts for Paper Pulp

Abstract

Pulp and paper men in recent years have taken much interest in the development of new species to take the place of the rapidly disappearing supplies of the softwoods which are at present so necessary to the industry. In 1922, the latest year for which figures are available, seventy-seven percent of the wood used for pulp in the United States was either spruce, fir or hemlock. As much as fifty-five percent of the pulpwood was from a single group of conifers, the spruces. With this concentration on a small number of species, it is not surprising that it is now becoming increasingly important to find ways in which other woods can be used economically in place of the conifers. The western hemlock, now used so extensively in the Pacific Northwest, was formerly held to be unsuitable for pulp manufacture and is a good example of the adaptation of a new species. Douglas Fir is another wood which is just now beginning to be used. A recent bulletin issued by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture gives the results of tests made at the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin, on some ninety-four American woods. The pulping tests were made by the four commercial processes now in general use. A large percentage of the woods were those known as hardwoods. The pulp and paper industry in 1922 used 790,000 cords of hardwoods and about 4,750,000 cords of softwoods.