Wood End of Pulp Production Wasteful.
Mr. Lovejoy pointed out that in many cases the woods end of pulp production was very wasteful. As an example, he cited a given forest area, having a stand of one-third beech, birch and maple, one-third spruce and one-third hemlock and balsam. Only a small part of the stand offers good log timber, not sufficient to attract a sawmill. A contractor is obtained to get out the pulp stock, the mill specifying that the stock shall not exceed 5 per cent. species other than spruce. The spruce comes out, together with all the balsam that the contractor can get by with. That skins the stand, but is not the worst of it. A lot of slash is left on the ground offering good material for a fire. If fire does not come the wind throws a lot of balsam. Side-light hitting the hemlock parch-blights it and it dies. Conditions are favorable to tree-destroying insects. If the forest finally survives it will not longer be a pulp-producing forest.
As a remedy for this condition, Mr. Lovejoy urged a dependable inventory of the forest resources by combined Federal, State and private agencies and the development of greater co-operation between wood-using plants, so that everything the forest produced could be utilized. He suggested that private owners might be induced to go into the business of raising timber, rather than have all the forests owned directly by the mills.