XX. THE PAPER INDUSTRY IN THE SOUTH
The paper industry is far from a newcomer in the South. Viginia had a paper mill as early as 1744 (1). North Carolina records show the erection of a mill in Salem in 1766. A decade later one W'iliam Bellamy was granted a subsidy of 3000 pounds with which to put up a paper mill in South Carolina. Several mills flourished in Tennessee in the early part of the nineteenth century, and Kentucky boasted a number of paper-making establishments about the same time, although this state has since ceased to be a factor in the paper industry. After the Civil War there was a considerable development of paper mills in the Virginias and a little later a similar building up of the industry in states farther south. At the beginning of the twentieth century the records show some fourteen mills in the far southern states, although the combined daily output of these mills was relatively small. By 1907, however, a substantial growth both in number of mills and in tonnage was recognized. Lockwood's Directory (2) for that year shows some twenty 6rms operating seventeen paper mills and eleven pulp mills, with combined rated capacities of 85,000 tons of paper and 140,000 tons of pulp a year. A few years later, in 1916, the same authority records twentyone firms in the same states, operating twenty paper mills and seventeen pulp mills with rated annual production capacities of approximately 200,000 tons each of paper and of pulp. Following the conclusion of the World War the South shared the general industrial expansion and in 1921 some thirty-two firms were listed as operating thirty-one paper mills and twenty-five pulp plants with an annual production capacity of 280,000 tons of paper or board and 312,000 tons of pulp, respectively. I t is within the past ten years, however, that the greatest progress has been made in the South. The 1930 Lockwood's Directory shows some forty-eight firms operating sixty paper mills and thirty-six pulp mills in eleven southern states. On the basis of 300 work'mg days a year the capacity of these mills is in excess of 1,275,000 tons of paper and 1,110,000 tons of pulp annually. Within a decade, therefore, the pulp and paper interests in the South have increased more than three-fold. Furthermore, there is now much additional activity in the forwarding of pulping projects
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in the South; a number of new developments are either under way or under advisement. The present status of the pulp and paper industry in the South is shown by states in Table I. TABLE I The Pulp and Paper Industry in the South, 1930 Slob
Alabama Arkansas Georgia Louisiana Mississippi North Carolina South Carolina Tennessee Virginia Texas Total
Firms
3 1 2 9 3 5 2 9 12 2
48
Pop" mills P r l ~1nills
Daily coPodly i n ton5 Popcr Pulp
-
2 1 0 7 3 5 2 5 10 1
-
310 150 30 1429 343 268 80 343 1195 100
340 175 120 907 350 367 21 433 778 35
50
36
4248
3526
3
1 2 11 3
5 2 6 15 2
-
The remarkable expansion of the pulp and paper industry in the South can be attributed to several factors. The first impetus for it came from the introduction of the so-called kraft or sulfate pulping process and the successful application of this method to the southern yellow pines. The development of the southern industry in the early part of the twentieth century was based upon the pulping of spruce and hemlock from the Appalachian region, although sporadic efforts were made to utilize the gums and other more distinctly southern growths. The first modem mills in Virginia and North Carolina produced soda, sulfite, and groundwood pulps from the Appalachian conifers and hardwoods. Mills in other southern states attempted to compete by producing papers from pines, from various crop plants, or through the repulping of old papers. The difficulties that they encountered resulted in many business fatalities. We find Alabama, Tennessee, and Kentucky, which figured in early papermaking history, more or less disappearing from view for a time and reappearing again only after the technic of pulping southern yellow pine had been perfected. Numerous enterprises in Georgia, Florida, and Louisiana lived a hand-to-mouth existence and in time either disappeared completely or at best struggled along under a balance sheet filled with red figures. About 1911, however, the Yellow Pine Paper Company, at Orange, Tex.. converted their soda pulp mill into a sulfate or kraft mill and within a few years had demonstrated the adaptability of this process to southern yellow pine in the manufacture of kraft wrapping paper and boards. The present southern pulp and paper industry may be said to date from that experiment. By 1916 six kraft mills had been put into operation.
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In 1921 this number had increased to nine, while in 1930 the records show seventeen such mills and the present building program in the South is almost entirely for this type of pulp. Perhaps a better way to show the part played by this process in southern pulping expansion is to tabulate the increasing use of southern yellow pine for pulp, as follows: TABLE I1 The Utilization of Southern Yellow Pine for Pulp in the United States from 1920 to 1928 Yew
No.of c a d s
1920 1922 1924 1925 1926
323,434 372,324 427,961 531,157 684.816
PWc,nlngc of lolnl U S. DulP~ v o o dconrum#ion
5.3 6.7 7.4 8.7 10.1
The quantities of southern yellow pine in Table I1 easily account for more than half the tonnage from southern mills. These mills used 72,611 cords of gum in 1928. Southern yellow pine constitutes by far the largest forest resource of the South. It reproduces rapidly and, with even moderate precautions in the way of fire protection and forest management, offers a potential supply of low-priced wood in perpetuity. A 20-year cycle has been found adequate for the growing of southern yellow pine of pulpwood size in most of the southern states. An investment in forestry in the South promises to net returns to a pulp mill within the life span of the present management, which is a psychological factor of great value. Other factors, of course, have played their part in southern pulping progress. The per capita consumption of paper in the United States has increased amazingly in recent years. The southern mills are relatively close to their markets and can easily compete with pulp and paper from the West or from foreign countries. The big advantage, however, is lowcost wood, particularly the southern yeUow pines. The South now produces many grades of paper. Book and yritings. tissues, ledgers, and specialty papers of various types are all being manufactured in the Viginias, in North Carolina, and in Tennessee. Soda. sulfite, and mechanical pulp mills are located in these states. The Celotex mills in Louisiana and the Masonite plant in Mississippi are turning out large quantities of insulating and building boards. The newly introduced semi-chemical process is being applied to extracted chestnut chips from the tanning extract plants in the Appalachian area, and to gum in South Carolina. These facts account for the growth of the southern paper industry in departments other than southern yellow pine kraft.
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The possible further expansion of the southern industry, however, is dependent upon a wider diversikation of products from the southern yellow pines. Undoubtedly, a considerable additional expansion of the southern kraft industry will come. Such favorable factors as low-priced wood, proximity to markets, improvement of transportation facilities, advantages in climatic conditions, and other industrial developments in the South point inevitably toward this. While the specialization on h a f t products continues, however, the financial eggs of the greater part of the southern pulp industry are all in one basket. To stabilize, the southern industry must diversify. To diversify it must develop products that can be derived from its one best raw material, namely, southern yellow pine. This is the crux of the present southern pulp problem. Fortunately, eiTorts toward such a diversification are already under way. Methods have recently been developed to bleach brown kraft pulps without a serious sacrifice in strength. This product of research offers a possibility of producina - stronrr, light-colored papers that EIGHTEEN-YEAR-OLD STANDOF LOBwith the FIGURE16.-ANLOLLY PINE IN LOUISIANA products now made almost entirely from northern conifer sulfite. This means also that bleached southern yellow pine pulps may invade the field of paper specialtiesa field in which requirements of use set the price, and not the low cost of raw materials or the economy of mass-production methods. Pines of recent growth seem to be less resinous than trees of older growth, a fact that may prove useful in applying the standard sulfite and mechanical processes of pulping. I t matters little that no real progress has yet been reported in this direction; the significance of the fact lies in the implied u~
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possibility of producing cheap print papers from southern yellow pines. Such papers form an outlet of large tonnage, and this field has never yet been entered by southan industry. The possibilities of the South in paper and pulps are of great promise. Progress in recent years in the face of the adverse conditions prevailing in other parts of the country indicates the soundness of the South's economic basis. The potentialities, however, are dependent upon intelligent research and sane developmental progress. Further expansion must be forward-looking and cognizant of the fundamentals basic to continued prosperity, namely, low-cost wood, which means intelligent forest management, and conservation and diversification of products, which will in a measure assure a stabilized operation and lessen the chance of overproduction in any one product. References (1) L n u N H. WEEKS,"History of Paper Making in the United States," New York. Loekwood Trade Journal Co., 1916. (2) "Lockwood's Directory of the Paper and Allied Trades," Loekwood Trade Journal Co.. New York.
