Page:Boy scouts in the White Mountains; the story of a long hike (IA boyscoutsinwhite00eato).pdf/68

 wood pulp—spruce and balsam almost entirely," said the Scout Master, taking pity on Peanut. "Linen paper, such as the kind you write letters on, is made out of linen rags. The newspapers use up so much paper for their great Sunday editions, especially, that they are really doing almost more to strip the forests than the lumbermen, because they don't even have to wait till the trees get good sized."

"Why can't they use anything except spruce and balsam?" asked Lou. "Won't other kinds of wood make paper?"

"They'll make paper," said Mr. Rogers, "but the fibre isn't tough enough to stand the strain of the presses. You know, a newspaper press has to print many thousands of copies an hour; it runs at high speed. The paper is on a huge roll, and it unwinds like a ribbon into the press. It has to be tough enough so that it won't break as it is being unwound. There's a fortune waiting for the man who can invent a tough paper which can be made out of corn-*stalks, or something which can be grown every year, like a crop. Think how it would save our forests! I'm told that every Sunday edition of a big New York newspaper uses up about eleven acres of spruce."

"Gee, Sunday papers ain't worth it!" Art exclaimed.

"They are not, that's a fact," Mr. Rogers agreed.