The Arizona Sentinel

WOOD-PULP FOR PAPER.
An Industry to Which Timber Country May Be Very Profitably Devoted.

The rapid development of wood-pulp manufacture in Maine is an intimation to the South and West that there is a new industry to which their great forest areas may be, in part, very profitably devoted. For, apparently, it doesn't matter much what species of wood is used in the production of pulp; possibly spruce is preferred in the extreme Northeast quite as much on account of its convenience as for any reason. At any rate, it is quite certain that poplar, hemlock, cypress and several other common woods would answer the purposes of the business acceptably; and it is also contended that white pine would do. What may be regarded as a specially attractive feature of the wood-pulp industry, from the standpoint of economy, is the fact that it utilizes the waste incident to timber-cutting on a large scale. Only the limbs of the fallen timber are taken; so there is no competition possible with lumber manufacturers, rail splitters or others having use merely for the bodies of the trees. The only domain trenched upon is that of firewood, more particularly in the corded form; but surely there could be no grievous losses in this direction to the fuel supply. For, naturally, the demand on behalf of wood-pulp manufacture would center itself where the timber is most abundant and cheapest; and in this way large quantities of felled timber, now left to feed forest fires or decay on the spot, would be turned to profitable account commercially.

-Age of Steel