May, 1929 
 
Bulletin 8 
 
Georgia Forest Service 
B. M. LUFBURROW, State Forester 
 
The Cellulose Industries 
By B. M. LUFBURROW, State Forester 
Cellulose Industries As a Field For Georgia Capital 
By W. W. ASHE 
 
  The Cellulose Industries 
By B. M. LUFBURROW 
When the verbose walrus spoke 
"Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, Of cabbages and kings," 
he might have added to the gamut of contrasts- 
"Of silk and alcohoL of ivory and glass, Of photographic films and smokeless powder, Of paints and pails and paper." 
All the latter are largely forms of cellulose or cellulose compounds. To name only the most important c11emical cellu lose products, there is artificial silk or rayon, flexible glass or cellophane, collodion and celluloid; artificial amber, tortoiseshell and ivory, photographic films, paints, lacquers and enamels, gun cotton, high explosives and smokeless powders, indurated ware and vulcanized fibre, paper of all kinds, and wood or methyl alcohol. 
The name cellulose is derived from the cellular structure of plants.  Plants are built up of minute, mostly elongated boxes or tubes, the cells. The framework or skeleton of the walls of these cells is called cellulose. In all parts of the world cellulose forms a large proportion of the bulk of most trees and plants. Whether it be the dwarf birches and willows within the Arctic Circle under the colored lights of the aurura borealis, or the stately palms of the tropics. their evergreen fronds bathed in the sunlight of eternal summer, the framework of all is cellulose. 
Cellulose in one of its myriad cellular forms is thus universal in its distribution, and few parts of the earth lack a suf- 
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 ftcient supply in the form of trees or plants not to justify the establishment of factories for its industrial use. Wood is largely cellulose, but in an impure form. Cotton fibre, the white fluffy lint of Dixieland, is essentially a pure natural cellulose. Esparto, a grass grown in the Mediterranean countries, is extensively used in Western Europe as a commercial source of cellulose. The bamboos of Asia are likewise a valuable source, and even corn stalks are available when they can be assembled cheaply enough. An enormous amount of cellulose yearly goes to waste in cotton stalks. Grain straws are largely cellulose, but they contain a high proportion of silica, a flinty, sandlike mineral. which is objectionable. Wood pulp furnishes not less than 95 per cent of the cellulose for industrial chemical purposes and the proportion from this source increases every year as greater progress is made in methods of handling it. Although cellulose is not a food, it forms a part of all grains and fruits and a large part of all hay and vegetables, constituting what the dietitians call crude fibre, indigestible material, but furnishing the food bulk needed for proper health. 
In wood the walls of the cells are stiffened by the deposit of cellulose or by the conversion of cellulose into the related chf.lmical compound lignin. with cellulose embedded in the ligmn. Lignin forms the center of the cell wall, or the middl~ lamella. which is the first portion of the cell formed from the protoplasm. This strata of lignin separates one cell from the ,'djoining cells. Its function is assumed to be purely physical. It produces an increase in the hardness or lignification (woodiness) of the cell wall and a resistence to swelling with water. Lignification, which is the conversion of the cellulose of the cell to lignin, ceases when growth of the cell is complete. The pentosans also form a large proportion of the wood tissue, and like lignin they seem to have no physiological function, such as storing up reserved food or supply materials, but serve as a cement to hold the fibres together. 
There are other secondary components of the woody tissue such as tannins, starch, fats and resins which are within 
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 the cells. These it is necessary to remove before the cell ulose of wood is in that state of purity which permits its uses where exact chemical reaction must be provided for. In cellulose chemistry pentosans and lignin are usually referred to as beta and gamma cellulose and the real cellulose as alpha cellulose. 
The process of pulping, when reduced to its simplest terms, is based upon the use of chemicals which will dissolve the lignin and pentosans (gamma and beta cellulose) and leave the cellulose fibres in the form of loose bundles. The lignin and pentosans are separated out by hydrolysis or oxidation of cellulose. Lignin and pentosan are rather terms of physiological botany. The cellulose chemist considers the woody tissue in relation to its reaction to certain chemicals. That portion of the cellulose fibre undissolved by a 17.5 per cent solution of sodium hydroxide represents alpha cellulose, which is the cellulose of commerce. Pentosan and lignin are the chief constituents removed as a result of such treatment. If this mixture of pentosans and lignin is then heated with a 5 per cent solution of acetic acid, the beta cellulose is precipitated out. The portion remaining is the gamma cellulose of the chemist. 
When carefully manipulated, cotton will yield cellulose which has well defined properties containing few impurities. For this reason it is the cellulose which is generally accepted as the standard. Wood cellulose, irrespective of the species of tree from which derived, cannot be i$olated in such a state of purity. Consequently, wood cellulose is not as homogeneous as that derived from cotton. Wood cellulose also varies in its composition and purity according to the methods employed in its isolation. So much so that some investigators have regarded wood cellulose as being of different chemical composition from cotton cellulose. But Bodeker and a number of other cellulose chemists regard them as being identical when wood cellulose is thoroughly purified, althoug:1 investigations along this line are not yet complete. 
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 The difficulty of determining the exact chemical nature of cellulose is due largely to its collodial properties and to the most intimate association of other more or less related compounds of plant structure which have not yet been successfully eliminated so as to procure absolutely pure cellulose. Chemically, cellulose is close to starch and like starch, it is nitrogen free, although it is produced by protoplasm which is a nitrogenous substance of the living cell. From the point of view of present uses and possibilities, and on account of its wide distribution, cellulose is commercially the most valuable constituent of plant life, outside of the strictly food compounds like starch. 
Unlike many organic compounds, cellulose combines with many chemical reagents and can later be recovered from them in its original form of cellulose-Resurgit l ''Regenerated.'' Yet, notwithstanding its resistance in the laboratory to certain classes of chemical action, in nature it readily and most fortunately succumbs to the bacterial ferments and the attacks of lower forms of plant life. The cellulose in the leaves and fallen trunks of trees after passing through the stage of humus, which is the brown or blackish layer lying immediately beneath the fallen leaves or moss in every unburned woods, is eventually reduced by the further action of these organisms to the stable forms of water and carbon dioxide from which it was originally built up. Earth to earth: carbon dioxide to carbon dioxide. There was a period, however, in our geological history, while our coal deposits were heing formed by the accumulated stems of trees, when this decay proceeded far more slowly than at present. 
RAYON OF WOOD SILK 
Rayon is the spruce tree silk. Its manufacture dates back only about two decades, yet today as a textile material it is surpassed only by cotton and wool. It already outranks both silk and linen. It is adapted to the manufacture of a wide range of woven and knit goods. It has a high luster, or can 
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 be made with slight luster or even with a dull finish if desired. It can be used alone or in mixture with cotton, wool, silk or any two of them. It takes dyes well, and as a substitute for silk has the advantage for many uses in being free from the attacks of moths. 
The original process for making cellulose yarn was developed in France. What is known as the viscose process was developed in Great Britain by the industrial chemists Cross and Bevans. The latter is the more widely employed process. A large amount of cotton linters is employed in the manufacture of rayon but purified wood pulp is also extensively used. 
For making rayon, cellulose that is largely free of all noncellulose compounds, such as starches, resins, lignin, and penrose, is treated with reagents to convert it into a gelatinous mass. The most widely used gelatinizing agent is carbon hisulphide, the employment of which is known as the viscose process: ammoniacal copper oxide may be used as the solvent : or, as in the original Chardonnet process, it ,may be a low nitrate solution, the threads subsequently being denitrated. The jelly which results from the action of these agents is forced through minute boles which are drilled perfectly round. The fine threads thus formed emerge into a solution which causes rhe jelly to coagulate or solidify, and in so doing to revert to the original cellulose. In another process, the cellulose treated with acetic acid compound becomes and remains an acetate of cellulose. The fine threads, as they are drawn through the hardening bath, represent only the first stage in the production of rayon. It is subjected to many other processes before it is eventually placed upon the shop counters as the strong but silky material of commerce. 
The thread of yarn which is used in woven or knit goods is not a single solid filament. It consists of a number of fine strands which are twisted together, the number varying with the size of the yarn. 
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 But viscose has a wide range of uses other than for textiles. It is formed into the thin transparent sheets known as cellophane and into viscose caps which are being made on a large scale. Viscoid is made from viscose, being imitation horsehair for upholstery and artificial wool, the thread being formed with a minute hole in its center like miniature macaroni. Among other extensive uses are as a filler in connection with the dyeing, printing and finish applied to textile fabrics; as a sizing material for laid papers; as a filler and surfacing material of cloth for binding books; and as a covenng for waterproof and washable window shades. 
PAPER AND CELLULOSE 
The largest use of elaborated cellulose is for paper. Its employment, however, fat this purpose, is less spectacular than its use for rayon; less of the marvelous to it than the making of a flex'ible glass from an opaque brittle base; less wonderful than the production of highly dangerous explosives, for paints and ivory, all from the same material which has served for the fuels of mankind since Prometheus snatched fire from heaven and man smothered his terror sufficiently to employ it as a beneficial agent. But cheap paper, abundant cheap paper, has been one of the most important factors in the development of modern civilization. 
The total world-wide production of paper is in excess of fifteen million tons, having an aggregate value in excess of $800,000,000 a year. The ranking producing countries are the United States, which makes more than half of the total world's output, and Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany. which together produce one-fourth. The remaining onefourth is scattered a.Jmong all the countries of the world. 
There are two classes of paper. Those which are made of commercially pure cellulose, the result of chemical treatment of wood, esparto, cotton, rags. straw and bamboo; and those. such 
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 as newspaper stocks, which consist in part of ground wood without preliminary treatment, merely screened and blocked. 
Newsprint paper contains only from fifteen to twenty per cent chemical pulp, that is, pure cellulose fibre. While the bleached ground wood is largely cellulose, it is associated with other compounds which go to make up wood tissue. Newsprint is made largely of merely ground wood, while bleached chemical pulp, essentially pure cellulose from which impurities or associated compounds have been eliminated by chemical treatment, might be said to form r:he entire body of some other papers. This chemical pulp is suitable not only for making paper, but after purification, for making rayon, fiexible glass, high explosives, paints, or other cellulose compounds. 
Kraft paper, however, for r:he making of which the wood of the yellow pine is used, is not a pure cellulose material as is the case with the other papers which are made from chemically prepared pulp. Kraft paper is made from an uncooked pulp, digested wirh sodium sulphate and sulphide liquor, and disintegration of the fibres, in place of being due to prolonged chemical treatment, is completed in the beaters and the Jordan engines. In the present day process for making Kraft paper, most of the turpentine is removed from the chipped wood by steaming before chemical treatment. Several valuable by-products are obtained through the recovery of methyl alcohol, oil of turpentine and various resins. Kraft papers, which are the brown wrapping papers, are characterized by their toughness. 
There has been wonderful improvement in the methods of making these papers during the last decade. Formerly, it was customary to saponify the resins in wood of pines used in making this class of paper, to render them soluble so they could b e washed out. The cost of chemicals used in this process was high and the resins were lost. Even with the most improved processes for making paper, large amounts of chemicals are required. For converting spruce wood into white paper about 
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 1, 300 pounds of coal, 230 pounds of sulphur and 300 pounds of limestone are required to produce one ton of dry pulp from about two tons of dry and prepared wood. A cord of dry spruce wood weighs about 3,100 pounds, or about one and one-half tons. Yellow pine wood is much heavier. The weight of the wood of the broad-leaved trees varies widely, some being quite light, even lighter than spruce, while other kinds are far heavier than even rhe wood of the yellow pine. 
Of the several chemical processes in use for separating cellulose from other compounds that form wood, the sulphite process is most generally employed, .more than two-thirds of the world's output of pulp for paper and rayon being so produced. By this process wood chips chiefly of spruce or northern poplars (aspen) are digested or cooked in closed retorts with hot bisulphite of lime which is prepared at the pulp mill in a special plant known as the acid plant. This liquor dissolves all the constituents of the wood except the cellulose, which is resistant, and these dissolved constituents are washed out, leaving the pulp as an impure, unbleached cellulose, which when bleached, becomes pure chemical cellulose. A cord of spruce wood yields by this process about 1150 pounds of pulp, so that it might be said that half of the wood used is saved as cellulose. The other half of the wood, consisting of lignin, pectins (pentosans), etc., known as beta and gamma cellulose, is now entirely a waste product. 
The qualities which determine the value of wood for paper making are primarily length of the fibre after chemical treatment, ease with which the wood when subjected to chemical treatment or ground, can be disintegrated into separate fibre; the readiness with which it can be bleached; the proportion of fibre, or pulp, as the treated wood is called, which is obtained; and its felting qualities. An essential element in paper making is the felting or knitting of the fibre or strands on being deposited from water-the strands must interlock just as in a felt bat. 
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 On account of the evenness of the texture of spruce, its large proportion of true cellulose fibre (more than 50 per cent ), the length of its fibre (from three to four millimeters), ease of bleaching, low loss in digesting with chemicals, and small resin content, this tree provides ideal wood for paper making, especially ground pulp for newsprint stock. Sulphite cellulose pulp fibre made from spruce is the standard. 
It may therefore be said that no other wood is in the same class as spruce or can compete with it for the production of newsprint paper. Every year newspapers absorb an increa~ ingly large proportion of the total output of paper and as the demands for suitable paper pulp increases, every available source of supply is scanned and appraised. But in producing rayon the fibre is destroyed in the process of gelatinization: therefore, cellulose from any other source is equally serviceable if it can be produced as cheaply and with the same standard of purity. 
Pines have very long fibre but their wood is not as uniform in texture or color as spruce. Dense, dark brown rings of wood alternate with soft, less dense, pale brown or yellow nngs. This necessitates chemical treatment to separate the fi bres. It is difficult to bleach the dark brown wood. In addition, the wood of the pines contains varying amounts of resin which must be eliminated to produce any but lowest grade paper. The proportion of wood eventually available for white paper making is relatively far smaller than in the case of spruce, and the processes of converting it are far more costly. 
The wood of many hardwoods, especially the heartwood, which is usually of a yellow or brown color, is dififcult to bleach ; the fibre is short and much of it is so light that it floats off in the process of washing or is otherwise lost in the necessary chemical treatment. The bamboos of eastern and southern Asia offer an unlimited amount of fibre similar in many respects to that of yellow pines and are well suited for the manufacture of Kraft papers, now that the objectionable dark coloring of their pulp can be avoided through the removal of cer - 
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 tain ingredients which in process of normal chemical treatment were burned a dark brown color. Methods also have been found to obviate the necessity of cutting out the knots or joints in their stems. 
The advent of wood into the paper field dates only from the third quarter of the last century. Since then the processes have step by step been improved or replaced by better. Accompanying the improvement in manufacture and cheapening of cost, there has been an enormous increase in the use of paper, particularly newsprint. Whereas population has trebled in the last fifty years, the use of paper in the United States has increased seven times. How far will this mounting increase extend? 
SPECIAL CELLULOSE INDUSTRIES 
Paper and the textile rayon are essentially pure cellulose, an exception being the trade brand known as celanese which IS a compound of cellulose and acetic acid or wood vinegar. 
A number of special cellulose industries depend not upon specific chemical or physical properties of unaltered cellulose, but upon the properties of its derivatives or its compounds, such as its esters. The esters are etherial salts, that is, combinations with either organic or inorganic acids, cellulose behaving as a~ alcohol in chemical reactions. The chief property of these compounds is their solubility in various alcohol solvents, notably in ether-alcohol. 
The two important chemical esters are the nitrates and the acetates. Nitrates which are characterized by inflammability are formed by the action of nitric acid upon cellulose, there being a series of nitrates obtained by varying the length of the period of the action of the acid. They are the basis of collodion, of celluloid, of the nitrates employed in the production of artificial silk by the Chardonnet process, and in making high explosives. The explosive propensity or inflammability is 
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 increased by prolonging, the action of the nitric acid , which mcreases the proportion of the nitric acid component. 
The acetates of cellulose are parallel materials to the nitrates with closely similar properties, but less inflammable. The chief bar to their wider adoption has been their price, but developments in methods of handling the acetylation reaction so as to recover the acetate values remaining in the reaction mixtures, have resulted in greatly cheapening costs. They are now being generally employed in making a rayon textile, in paints, in photographic films, and for other purposes. 
PHOTOGRAPHIC AND MOVIE FILMS 
The first flexible photographic plates were made of collodion on which gelatin emulsion was spread which was then photo sensitized. The cellulose film was a decided improvement since it permitted the film to be rolled. The early cellulose films, however, were made of highly inflammable cellulose nitrates. They were dangerous and there was risk in using rhem in commercial moving pictures. Another defect which users of rolled films will remember in the first decade of the present century, was the manner in which the films curled up after being developed. This made it extremely difficult to handle them. Often after they became old they were extremely brittle and would frequently tear or break. This trouble which was due to greater tension on one side of the film than the other as a result of the coating, was overcome. 
Next, the cellulose acetate film was substituted for the pyroxylin. This greatly reduced danger from inflammability. The troubles with the acetate films were their stiffness and brittleness, also their high cost. It was some time before the problem of stiffness was solved. Now acetate films are coming into general and standard use. Their durability, greater flexibility and lower cost. have made them commercially acceptable. 
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 HYGIENIC SAUSAGE CASINGS 
Another use for sheet cellulose is in making casmgs for stuffed sausage. Sausages put up in this material are sold as skinless, the casing being so thin that it is scarcely noticed when the sausage is eaten. When browned by cooking the skin becomes fragile and tender. These casings are .made of a cellulose film which is less than one-thousandth of an inch in thickness. Now that the wiener skin can be made of sanitary cellulose, we may look for the "hot-dog" stands to reach a higher sanitary standard. 
TRUNKS AND SMOKELESS POWDERS 
Vulcanized fibre is a trade name for a composition board made from heavy paper or paper boards treated with zinc chloride solvents, the sheets being cemented together by means of the solvent which is afterwards washed out. Vulcanized fibre is used for making trunks, packing cases for traveling men, hat boxes, washers for faucets and for electrical insulation. Articles like pails, waste baskets, etc., can be pressed into shape in a single piece, this adding materially to their strength and durability. 
If cotton as a textile material has been among the foremost products of the world in ministering to the comfort of mankind, it likewise, as the foundation for gun cotton and smokeless powders, has been one of the important instruments in destroying civilization so slowly built up. Gun cotton, made by treating purified cotton with nitric acid, is a dangerous form of cellulose to handle, but it was discovered that it could be dissolved in alcohol compounds or ethers, with which it formed a jelly. While in the jelly stage it can be moulded or cut into shapes and sizes required for use as an explosive. After the evaporation of the solvent it then again becomes a solid, retaining its shape, and is more easily handled than in the form of gun cotton. Also, while in the jelly stage it is less explosive 
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 than while in the dry form. This material is combined with nitro glycerine forming the base of a number of smokeless powders having somewhat different properties, but each with a nitro-cellulose component. 
It is stated that the surplus stock of nitro-cellulose left on t:he hands of manufacturers of war explosives was largely responsible for the development of the pyroxylin or nitro-cellulose paints. Nitro-cellulose compounds, as stated, were originally prepared for making smokeless powders and other wartime propellants, but when there was no longer a call for them after the World War, these enormous stocks were a source of danger. It was necessary to find some profitable use to which they could be converted. The outcome was the development of cellulose paints, which was done by modifying the nitric acid content so as to reduce inflammability and by the incorporation of paint pigments. The difficulty of applying this material was overcome by spraying in place of spreading with brushes. The use of these paints greatly reduced the time required for painting automobiles. Even the tin "Lizzie" required a certain amount of luster to sell it. Two coats of oil paint require several days in the paint shop, but with the pyroxylin paints, four coats can be applied within as many hours. 
Through the admixture of castor oil. these pyroxylin compounds remain plyant upon drying. This permitted clorh to be waterproofed by a coating of them, or the cloth could even be built up in thickness and grained in imitation of leather. Such cloth is used for covering automobiles, and for covering trunks and bags, while the imitation leather is extensively used in upholstery. Specially prepared cloth is similarly coated for window shades, while still other kinds serve as covering for backs of books, or in place of wall paper for bathrooms or where a washable wall covering is desired. 
IVORY AND PEARLS 
Celluloid was developed as a cellulose compound about the 
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 middle of the last century. When its commercial manufacture had been cheapened, there was an era of the celluloid collar and cuffs-indestructible apparel-designed to reduce the laundryman to penury and outwit the haberdashery makers of Troy. Mais, c'est a rire! The table is turned, for rayon cellulose has now been adopted by the shirt making fraternity as a seductive material for a silk craving male; and as the :hick of the burlesque stage was supposed to ablute his celluloid clothes over the tin pan on the back porch, so now our Cinderella nightly cleanses at least her wood-cellulose hose in the home lavatory, dries them on her private clothes line and is the princess in them t:he next day. 
Cellulose might be considered as the earliest of the pyroxylin plastics. From it there has been gradually developed an enormous industry manufacturing articles from a composition produced by a mixture of nitro-cellulose, camphor and alcohol. These compounds form the artificial ivories, the imitation amber, imitation shells and pearls and are employed for making a wide and wonderfully beautiful range of toilet articles of infinite shades, opaque or translucent, dull or brilliant, to meet the demands of style or the whims of fancy. Among some of the articles which are made may be mentioned umbrella handles, bag frames, toilet sets, bracelets, necklaces, imitation stones for breast pins, ear rings, buttons, fountain pens, optical frames and knife handles. And when noting the varied array of these beautiful articles in the display case of a store, consider that their base :may be Georgia cotton elaborated through the knowledge of the chemist and wrought into a form designed by an artist. 
WOOD ALCOHOL 
And then there is methyl alcohol, so often referred to in the new,spapers, and familiarly known as wood alcohol, its imbibers becoming-like cupid and like even-handed justicesightless. A most valuable industrial product with a range of 
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 industrial uses, it is fortunate! y referred to as an alcohol rather than by its chemical cognomen of methyL for if it were not sold as an alcohoL its employment in a poisonous, if not fatally blinding beverage, would be less frequent. It is a distillate of the cellulose of wood, the chief other product being acetate of lime (acetic acid) which, combined with cellulose as its acetate, forms one of the most valuable of the cellulose esters. 
WHO OWNS THE CELLULOSE INDUSTRIES 
Plants for the manufacture of rayon are built in large and expensive units. Those in the United States are largely controlled by American capital operating, however. under foreignowned patents. But considerable foreign capital is also invested in hmerican rayon factories. The Hercules Powder Company, duPonts and other makers of high explosives are interested in cellulose for such products as have a nitro-cellulose base, but the duPonts especially have widely ramifying interests in other lines of manufacture, particularly paints, celophane and pyraline or imitation ivory, which make extensive use of this compound. 
As having a bearing upon the subject of the ownership and control of the world wide rayon industry, the following is quoted, with slight changes, from a recent report on the subject, "International Cartels," issued by the Department of Commerce, June, 1928: 
"The so-called in ternationa! rayon cartel is, strictiy speaking, not a formal carteL at least, the information so far revealed does not indicate a specific understanding regarding limitation of production, although there is a very definite agreement or 'convention' on prices. The declared object of the cartel is to eliminate harmful competition through an agreement on prices and a certain specialization in marketing, without a definite territorial division, and an improvement of the product through interchange of patents and technical improvements and processes. 
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 This is further strengthened by the rather close financial interrelation between members, extending in some cases to joint ownership of plants and in others to practical control. This feature, combined with the fact that the two most important members of the combination, Courtaulds and the Vereinigte Glanzstoff, have branch plants or closely affiliated plants, in the important consuming markets of the world, would account for the fact that this apparently loose international organization is, with some justice, regarded as coming closer to an international trust than any other known international cartel. 
"The rayon industry has had an international character frqm the time it emerged from the experimental stage. This was due not only to the patent factor, which is of extreme importance, but also to the fact that the manufacture requires large amounts of capital for experimental work, as well as for the actual production. It is a very mobile industry from the raw material standpoint and the distribution of plants has been largely determined by the initiative of capital, consuming capacity of market, tariff policies, and availability of labor. 
"Although the so-called working agreement between the largest producers-Courtaulds (Great Britain), Vereinigte Glanzstoff (Germany), and Snia Viscosa (Italy)-was concluded at r:he beginning of 1927, an agreement between the first two groups dates at least from 19 25, as evidenced by the organization of the Courtaulds-Glanzstoff plant near Cologne; the establishment of close relations with the largest Dutch producer, Enka, also preceded the larger combination. The unusually rapid progress of the Snia Viscosa, due to a considerable extent to the favorable labor factor, was arrested toward the end of 1926 by the Italian currency situation and other financial difficulties, which gave the British and German groups an opportunity to acquire sufficient holdings in the Italian concern to assure its entry into the combination. It is claimed by some that the control of the Snia is now in the hands of the Courtaulds-Glanzstoff pool. The consolidation of the French 
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 producers during the second half of 1927 marked the rise of another strong competitor, with the result that at present there is in existence a working agreement on prices, domestic markets, patents and technical processes and improvements, affecting between 80 and 90 per cent of the world rayon production. 
"A number of factors in the rayon situation need pointing out to indicate the full significance of the concentration movement. In the first place, the international working agreement affects primarily the production of rayon by the viscose process, comprising 80 to 90 per cent of world production. The most important producers of acetate rayon, like Britis:h celanese, are not members of the combination, although the Vereinigte Glanzstoff is also interested in the production of acetate rayon, in combination with the I. G. Farbeinindustrie, through joint ownership of the Aceta plant; and it is claimed by some that the partial adherence of the Belgian Tubize interests and the relations between the Verinigte Glanzstoff and the I. G. Farbeinindustrie bring the viscose combination rather close to the important non-viscose producers. 
"There is one feature about the international rayon agreement that is of particular interest to the student of the industrial development of the United States. The rayon industry represents the striking anomaly of an American industry producing more and consuming more of a staple manufactured product than any other country in the world, that is either affiliated with or controlled by foreign interests, that is, by Courtaulds (Great Britain) and Vereinigte Glanzstoff-Bemberg (Germany), and leading members of the international co,mbination. This condition is explained primarily by the fact that the basic patents of the industry are largely of European origin and that the European producer displayed considerable initiative and enterprise in taking advantage of the possibilities of the American market. 
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 " Another important point is that the headquarters of the most important members of the international group are located to a considerable extent outside of the countries in which they have their principal plants. The interests of the Courtaulds in the United States, for instance, are vested in its subsidiary, the American Viscose Corporation, which is responsible for about 55 per cent of the country's total production; and operations in Canada, India, Spain, Norway, Germany, France, Czecho-Slovakia, etc., are more important collectively from a production standpoint, than this concern's plants in England. 
"Although the foreign interests of the German group (Vereinigte Glanzstoff) are less extensive, this concern is interested in important plants in the United States, Japan, Austria, Czecho-Slovakia, and t:he Netherlands, in addition to having financial interests in the J. P. Bamberg A. G., the second largest producer in Germany, which also has some foreign branches. The same situation exists to some extent with Italian and French producers. 
"It will therefore be seen that the rayon combination is a world combination, one of the most comprehensive as to the proportion of production controlled, as well as one of the most intimate from a financial standpoint, considering the number of countries involved. 
"Considering that this degree of centralization has been attained by an industry whose total production in 1896 amounted to only 600 metric tons, as compared with 120,000 tons estimated in 19 2 7, there is some justification for the statement that the international rayon cartel. in spite of the exceptional nature of the rayon industry which makes it particularly adapted to international combinations, cannot be regarded merely as an exceptional development, but rather as a striking manifestation of the movement toward centralization characteristic of modern industry." 
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 CELLULOSE INDUSTRIES AS A FIELD FOR GEORGIA CAPITAL 
By W. W. ASHE 
The State of Georgia is rich in cellulose yielding materials but the amount of chemically elaborated cellulose made in the state is small. 
In Georgia the most important raw cellulose material is cotton. Low-grade cotton forms the basis of an enormous number of cellulose articles. Nevertheless, there are in Georgia only a few plants engaged or preparing to engage in the elaboration of cellulose from cotton. Of these, the most important are the nitro-explosive plant at Brunswick and the rayon plant at Rome. 
An unlimited and, so far as the State of Georgia is concerned, a practically untouched cellulose field is the native woods. The wood of all the native pines is about 45 per cent cellulose. The pines are distributed over the whole of Georgia. On the slopes of the mountains grows the white pine, and at lower altitudes the yellow pines extend over the state to the coast. Many broad-leaved trees likewise might be made sources of cellulose, such as yellow poplar. which is found throughout the state, and the bays and gums which form a large portion of the timber of the swamps of the eastern and southern coun ties. 
Although cotton has been the backbone of southern prosperity, there is throughout its realm no laboratory or chair at any institution devoted to extending the use of cotton through chemical research. If today there is an enlarged market for cotton linters as a result of the manufacture of rayon , this widened field is due to no process developed by the initiative of cotton interests. 
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 NEED OF RESEARCH 
To develop adequately the cellulose chemical industries , research work must be established and maintained. This will provide facilities not only for placing before the engineers and chemists complete information in regard to commercial processes but for testing out and developing new processes. Such research could go far toward establishing cellulose industries in the state. This would open up new and profitable channels for the marketing of Georgia wood and assist in rehabilitating the declining agriculture of the state. 
Wood, which is the chief source of the cellulose for the chemical industries, is largely composed of three series of compounds referred to by the industrial chemist as alpha. beta and gamma cellulose. Alpha cellulose is the cellulose of commerce. It forms for different kinds of trees from 40 to 60 per cent of the weight of their wood. Under the processes that are in current use the other cellulose materials in wood have little value and are wholly or in part wasted. The development of a process permitting profitable use of beta and gamma cellulose might add much to the value of the woods of the southern pines, which carry an exceptionally large proportion of the materials. Such a development might result in making the yellow pines of Georgia equally valuable with spruce as a source of commercial cellulose for many purposes. This would mean a material increase in the wealth of the State of Georgia. 
Another wide field open to the chemist is the development of processes that will permit a more extensive use of the woods of Georgia in the manufacture of paper. The paper-making qualities of many of these woods are little known. Less than three decades ago it was held doubtful whether the wood of the Southern yellow pines, on account of its hardness, its deep yellow color which rendered bleaching costly, and its resinous nature, could be successfully employed in making any but the coarsest paper. Today this wood is a standard and economic material for making many classes of strong papers; but these 
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 papers are brown, and this restricts their field of usefulness. Wider use will depend upon the chemist. 
THE LAND PROBLEM OF GEORGIA 
The decline in rural population and agriculture that is now taking place in Georgia is taking place in other states as. well : but its effects are especially acute in Georgia for the reason that far more than half of the wealth of the state is invested in agriculture. In states like New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois, while the quantity of farm products is extremely large, the proportion of wealth produced in other lines is such that agriculture is overshadowed. To wipe out the agricultural resources of Georgia would bankrupt the state. 
In the 15-year period between 1909 and 1924, population decreased in 54 out of the 161 counties in Georgia, or in 30 per cent of all the counties in the state. The counties in which the decrease took place were agricultural counties. In 28 other counties there was a decrease in rural population which was offset by an increase in the urban population, that is, in the population of incorporated towns. Thus the rural population decreased in a total of 46 per cent of the counties of the state. In those 5 years the total rural population of Georgia made rhe very small increase of 4. 7 per cent. This low rate of increase in the rural population was partially compensated by an increase of 35 per cent in the urban population; the increase in the total population, however, was only 11 per cent. The urban industrial development of the state had not been suffitient to absorb fully that portion of the population which was lost by the decline in agriculture. 
This decline in rural population, while possibly not so acute at present as during rhe first two decades of this century, has not yet ceased. As might be expected, the decrease in rural population has been accompanied by an alarming curtailment in the rate of agricultural development, the real founda- 
 
 tion of the prosperity of the state. Increased efficiency on the part of the remaining agricultural workers has to a certain extent compensated for the decrease in the area of agricultural land, which in the fifteen years, 1909-1924, exceeded 5,000,000 acres, and in the number of farms, which between 1910 and I 925 declined by more than 42,000. There was during the same period an enormous decline in the production of cotton, due to a decrease of more than 2,000,000 acres in the area of land devoted to the cultivation of this crop. The remarkable increase in the production of tobacco and peanuts that took place at the same time required only a relatively small increase in the acreage devoted to these crops. 
Between 19 09 and 19 24 there was a decline of 24 per cent in the total yield of grain crops-corn, wheat and oats-in Georgia. In the corn yield there was a decline of 11,000,000 bushels; in oats, 2,000,000 bushels; and in wheat, something more than 500,000 bushels. The yield of oats, which can be regarded as the standard grain feed for draft stock, has been falling steadily since 1909. The decrease in corn and oats large!y follows from the increased used of automobiles, trucks and tractors which not only have replaced draft stock in the cities but have accounted in part for a decrease between 1909 and 1924 of 18,000 in the number of draft animals employed on Georgia farms. Since 1909 there has likewise occurred a decrease in the amount of hay produced in Georgia. ascribable to the same conditions. 
INCREASE OF CULTIVATED ACRES UNECONOMIC 
For more than a century the land policy both of the Federal Government and of the States, so far as the States have assumed the responsibility of a policy, has been to open up more and more land to be settled and occupied by farmers. T:here has been no ~estriction in the competition, and with the exhaustion of the land available for natural cultivation there 
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 has followed a general movement to develop for farming lands that cannot be farmed except by irrigation or drainage, partly at the farmers' expense. It is safe to say that in this policy of expansion there has been too little thought for the farmers' welfare. 
In 1925 the Secretary of the Interior said, "There is no need for more reclamation projects until the present ones are on a sound basis. One-third of rhe projects are insolvent; onefourth should neYer have been built. Six thousand farms irrigated by the Government are without occupants." Yet these irrigated reclamation projects are supposed to be the favored lands on which crops are certain. 
The general policy of the States has been to dispose of all their lands regardless of suitability for farming. This has led to the granting for 11omestead purposes of thousands of acres the clearing and cultivation of which should never have been attempted. It was disastrous for the homesteader who, with his family, often spent years of toil. only in the end to have the bitter disappointment of failure and realization that a decent living could not be made under existing conditions. He lost his time, most of his labor, perhaps invested money in addition. 
A second consequence of the clearing of so much rough land has been an enormous increase in the quantity of soil eroded from the naked surface of this land after cultivation ceased. This has been an element in the low returns from hillside farms. It has laid an additional burden on the farmer as well as on others in the way of taxes. This erosion of soil has necessitated continued dredging of stream channels to keep them open; it is now threatening the permanency of storage reservoirs of hydroelectric power companies-a consequence really more important to the people of this state, because power, and cheap power, now is an important factor in determining markets for farm products and in determining the cheapness of goods used by the farmer. 
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 It is my opinion that under these conditions the land policy to be advocated is not the clearing of additional lands. With the continued decline in rural population the opening up of additional lands mean, as a rule, drawing people from established agricultural communities. The older communities are weakened and the newly established communities remain weak. Such a policy would tend to maintain the condition that in the past has retarded rural development over so much of the country, especially in the South. Would not the desirable policy at the present time be to take measures that will tend to check the further clearing of woodland? Is not the best way to do this to take such a course as will make land that is now in woods most profitable as an investment? 
WOODLAND ARE INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY 
There are some six million acres of waste and unproductive land in Georgia. It can safely be said that not one-tenth of the woodland of the state is producing two-thirds of its normal capacity, and large portions are producing less than onehalf their capacity. These estimates do not include stands of old timber the growth of which is stationary. 
For the past 50 years Georgia has been exerctsmg itself to secure industrial capital. Capital is not necessarily invested money, but may be property that has a producing capacity. Woodland now offers an opportunity for developing an enormous amount of increased capital at a very slight outlay. It requires the raising of no large sums of money for purchase or investment. It demands no increase in labor cost such as is required for handling an increase in farm area. A local or nearby market awaits the product. Timber is now coming into the eastern states from the Pacific Coast and from the lower Mississippi Valley region. This state has the differenece m freight as its extra margin of prospective profit. 
It is necessary to stress the desirability of the adoption of a 
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 definite policy in regard to the use of land. Certain lands at the present time should be considered as essentially suited to the growing of timber, and should be managed with this object in view. It is not desired in any way to disparage the importance of the further extension of agriculture whenever economic conditions justify it; but extension of the farm area should be restricted until the earnings of the farmer are on a higher level. Land not now in use for farming should be put to use in the production of timber. 
In order to make possible the best economic use of Georgia's potential timber crops, it is necessary that new uses for certain classes of wood be developed. Already the state has an enormous and always increasing area of small and lowgrade timber, second growth of inferior quality. Not only must wood-using industries be developed, but the utilization of cellulose, the most important content of wood, should be developed and extended by means of the chemical industries. This can be accomplished only by means of adequately supported research. 
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