Page:Zacaton as a paper-making material (IA zacatonaspaperma309bran).pdf/6

 BULLETIN

2

309, TJ.

S.

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.

In this country scarcely a month passes during which some wild plant or crop waste is not proposed as a certain and permanent relief to the paper manufacturer from the stress resulting from try.

new

the rising cost of raw materials.

The past 10 years have witnessed an enormous growth in the pulp and paper industry and a keener realization of the fact that the present wood supply of the United States can not indefinitely withstand the demands placed upon it. About 80 per cent of the paper stock used in this country is derived from wood. In 1900 about 2,000,000 cords of wood were used for pulp manufacture, and the present use is approximately 4,500,000 cords a year. Pulp-wood imports in this country increased from 650,000 cords at $4.20 per cord in 1907 to In 1903, 131,000 tons of wood pulp 1,036,000 cords at $6.60 in 1913. were imported, as against 563,000 tons in 1913. In a report of the United States Forest Service in 1914 the annual growth of wood in the United States is placed at 12 cubic feet per acre per year, while there are being removed 36 cubic feet per acre per year; in other words, as a nation, wood is being used three times Without doubt imported wood will play an as fast as it grows. important role in the paper industry of this country for many years to come. New woods are in common use to-day which would not have been considered a few years ago, and reforesting is being given very serious attention, all of which goes to show a desire on the part of the pulp manufacturer to husband his present source of supply or to secure

new sources. demand for paper stock is gaining so rapidly upon the very clear that the price of raw material will continue to increase and in so doing will bring other raw materials into competiIt is for this reason that investigations of the adaptability of tion. fibrous plants and crop wastes should be carried on with some of the more promising materials. The Office of Paper-Plant Investigations of the Bureau of Plant Industry has numerous materials under examination and proposes from time to time, as the data obtained may warrant, to publish the information which has been secured. The publication of these data will not mean that the work with the material has been completed or that the conclusions reached are final. There is always a possibility that further information and the devising of new and Since the

supply

better

it is

methods may

result in taking a

unpromising materials and placing

raw material from the it

in

the class

of

class of

promising

materials.

The work with zacaton (Epicampes macroura Benth.) has

pro-

gressed to a point where at least a preliminary publication of results is

desirable.