Lookins Ahead

An Addrcrr by J. P. Wev erhaeuset, h., Executive Vice-President, Weyerha eurer

Timber Company, on the Occasion of the Dedication of the Weyerhreuser-Klamath Trec Farm, Klamath Falls, Orcgon, Augurt 5, 1943

You have all met the smoking car theorist lvho observes freely on any subject.' There are millions of him. One of them said to me the other day, "Why doesn't the lumber industry get rid of the horse and buggy and stop annihilating our trees with prodigious waste?" Many of you have heard him ask questions like that. Perhaps, for some few of you, that might even have been your own question in another's mouth.

Such incidents cloud us in doubt. Is ours a backward business? Or could it be that the general public is nqt keeping up to date with information? Does John Q. have any idea of the money and efiort going into forest indttstry research?

Suppose, instead, another question lvere compounded: "ITow much research is going on; where is it being done; and who's paying for it?"

That question covers so much territory and reaches dorvn so many bypaths, all having to do with the future of rvood, that it is impossible to more than set a few survey stakes in quick summary. Suppose we take a ferv illustrations from the field, beginning at home'

The Western Pine Association l'ras for trventy years directed and consistently expanded an intelligent line of rtsearch in its own laboratory at Portland. It has dotre mttclt to improve Pine lumber.

The Douglas Fir Plywood Association, in its own laboratory at Tacoma, has porrred many tens of thousands of dollars of the profits of its member mills back into research to make plywood a better, more economical and rnore widely useful product for those rvho buy it'

The National Lumber Manufacturer's Association has more recently initiated a research program. For years before that, its affiliate, the Tinrber Engineering Company, had pioneered in developing engineered rvooden structures fabricated rvith metal connectors. That researcl.r has borne important fruit in America's n'ar by providing tl.re natiorr with an answer to its steel shortage.

The Institute of Paper Chemistry, at Appletorr, \Ar'iscotrsin, has for many years been generonsly and exclttsively financecl by manufacturers of pulp and paper who rvishe<l to unlock still further secrets from lvood cellulose :rnd at the sarne time train competent technicians to carrY olr the endless task of research.

The Pacific I-umber Co., in the rechvoocl countrv rrrlt far from here, at Scotia, California, lras a well-knou'n record for developing nerv products fronr forest resotlrces. Its research in u'ood plastics and bark fibre products is particularly notable.

Crown-Zellerbach Corporation, and its allied com;larries, largest users of rvood on the Pacific Coast for pulp and paper manufacture, has been investing for years in rvootl cellulose research.

All of the enterprises mentioned are, I believe, financed entirely with private funds. But, the list is much longer. In the hunt for who among the private enterprise companies are doing research on wood, one meets such vvellknorvn names as: United States Plywood Companv and Harbor Plywood Company, outstanding in plywood developments; Masonite Corporation of Mississippi, a pioneer in the field of wood fibre insulation; and the Marathorr organization of Wisconsin with an excellent research aud development record in wood pulp, paper and chemicals.

In addition, many companies-some of them well-known to you-are developing new products that are either derived from wood or are to be used in combination rvith rvood to improve its usefulness-paints, preservatives, toxic treatments, and so on. There is only time to mention er few narnes: Dow Chemical, Tennessee Eastman, Monsanto Chemical, Hercules Powder, DuPont. These are among the leading pioneers who are blazing a new industrial trail today and opening an entirely nerv vista of forest resources utilization. With wood as their prime material, they are unfolding a marvelous new array of products in the fields of textiles, plastics, photographic film, bristles, lacquers-to mention only a few.

I doubt if there is a dime of taxpayers' money in this vast and ramified wood research program being carried on bv private companies such as I have mentioned up tt'r now.

But, as one would expect, wood research is also going aheacl in public or semi-public laboratories. The largest of tlrese is the Forest Products Laboratory at Madison, Wisconsin, where, under the general direction of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, and with the generotls help of annual federal appropriations of from $600,000 to $1,000,000, rvork in many fields of wood utilization has been going on for years .with brilliant accomplishments.

There are many schools and colleges specializing irt n'ood research. Amonq them are: Oregon State. Pennsyir.ania State, McGill University at Montreal, New York State College of Forestry, Yale and such state universities as \\'ashington, Idaho and Minnesota. Such research is variously financed through public funds and,/or by scholarships and foundations supported by private funds.

There are also numerous specific projects being pursued by independent research agencies such as the Armour Institute at Chicago. It is doubtful whether a complete list of such projects has ever been compiled.

In all the major fields of exploration into forest resources, Weyerhaeuser Timber Company is conducting a bro'ad research and development program of its ort'n. Part of this has been done through its affiliate, the Wood Conversion Company of Cloquet, Minnesota, on a consistent program that goes back some twenty years. More recently, we have broadened our fields and sharply expanded our laboratory facilities.

Within the past year we have completed and put into active use a new Development Department, housed in its own laboratory of special design at Longview, Washington. The facilities and staff of that new department are actually an integral part of our manufacturing operations here at Klamath Falls. It is our hope that from time to time we may apply some of the findings of that department in practical form right here and translate them into terms of new kinds of jobs for citizen's of this community.

In fact, we are just about to make one such translation. W-hile not a product of our own laboratory, it is nevertheless a product of another member mill of the Western Pine Association. Reference is made to the manufacture of Pres-to-logs from planer mill waste, a product and process developed by Potlatch Forest, Inc., at Lewiston, Idaho, following many years of experimentation and since developed into a new-type fuel business now carried on widely. A new Pres-toJog manufacturing unit is now nearing completion in our Klamath Falls mill and you will, before so very long, have full announcement of this new enterprise from Manager Macartney.

The Pres-to-log is one tangible symbol of more efficient wood utilization. I'd like to mention another-a product of our own study-to illustrate a point.

In our wood pulp mill at Everett, Washington, we have recently placed in operation a $75Q000 "dream machine" for barking and chipping hemlock logs.

With this installation we can take the bark ofr a 36inch log cleanly in about a minute and then chip the whole log without breaking it down to smaller sizes. One result is a byproduct of clean bark from which tannin, used in leather processing, can be manufactured. But, more importantly, we are able to get N per cent more pulp from the same log.

Imagine, if you please, one such process developmenr which would make the Klamath forest resources 4 p". cent more productive.

And now, in conclusion, I challenge the insult of the smoking car theorist. I feel that he is the one who is driving the mental horse and buggy. The forest industries have traded theirs in for a post-Victory, self-propelled vehicle. I say that Progress is with us and all about us, both as to creating permanence through Tree Farms and creating new products and new Processes to utilize with ever-increasing efficiency the wood grown on those Tree Farms.

It is not a backward industry that will delay desired progress. Rather, the danger is that people like you and me will hesitate to take the risks involved in the new ventures suggested by research, because government has removed our chance to reap the benefits of the hard work and enterprise involved in putting those ventures over.

You know what the individual has to do about taxes. That comes over and above what happens to the company in which he may own stock. That company under

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