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October 14, 1916
Excerpts from U.S. Department of Agriculture Bulletin 404
The Manufacture Of Paper From Hemp Hurds
Jason L. Merrill, Paper-Chemist, USDA
Intoduction
Page 7.
“Since hemp hurds are to be treated in this report as a raw material for the manufacture of book and printing papers, the qualities, supply, probable future, and cost of the material will be considered in comparison with wood in which it must compete. There seems to be little doubt that the present wood supply cannot withstand indefinitely the demands placed upon it, and, with increased scarcity, economy in the use of wood will become imperative. This effect is already apparent in many wood-using industries.”
Comparison To Wood
Page. 24.
“The most important point derived from our calculation is in regard to areas required for a sustained supply, which are in the ratio of 4 to 1. Every tract of 10,000 acres which is devoted to hemp raising year by year is equivalent to a sustained pulp-producing capacity of 40,500 acres of average pulpwood lands. In other words, in order to secure additional raw material for the production of 25 tons of fiber per day, there exists the possibility of utilizing the agricultural waste already produced on 10,000 acres of hemp lands instead of securing, holding, reforesting, and protecting 40,500 acres of pulpwood land. The annual growth per acre, although decidedly in favor of hurds, has little bearing on the project, because the utilization of the hurds is subordinate to the raising of hemp, and the paper manufacturer probably could afford to use only hurds resulting from the hemp industry.”
Advantages of Hemp Hurds
Page 9.
“Without doubt, hemp will continue to be one of the staple agricultural crops of the United States. The wholesale destruction of the supply by fire, as frequently happened in the case of wood, is precluded by the very nature of the hemp raising industry. Since only one year’s growth can be harvested annually, the supply is not endangered by the pernicious practice of over cropping, which has contributed so much to the present high and increasing cost of pulp wood. The permanency of the supply of hemp hurds thus seems assured. The favorable location geographically of the hemp regions in relation to the pulp and paper industry is a factor of considerable importance. The Kentucky region is not at present in a position to supply hurds, as machine methods have not been adopted there to any appreciable degree. The Ohio and Indiana region, which at present has the greatest annual tonnage with the prospect of an increase, is situated south of the Wisconsin and Michigan wood-pulp producing region, and at a distance from the eastern wood-pulp producing regions. Therefore it is in a favorable position to compete in the large Ohio and Indiana markets. Since, as will be shown, the hurd pulp acts far more like soda poplar stock than sulfite stock, the competition would be strongest from the eastern mills. In fact, the hurd stock might very possibly meet with favor as a bookstock furnish in the Michigan and Wisconsin paper mills, which are within the sulfite fiber-producing region, where a considerable extension of the hemp industry is anticipated.”
Conclusions
Page 25.
“There appears to be little doubt that under the present system of forest use and consumption the present supply cannot withstand the demands placed upon it. By the time improved methods of forestry have established an equilibrium between production and consumption, the price of pulp wood may be such that a knowledge of other available of raw materials may be imperative. Semi-commercial paper-making tests were conducted, therefore, on hemp hurds, in cooperation with a paper manufacturer. After several trials, under conditions of treatment and manufacture which are regarded as favorable in comparison with those used by pulpwood, paper was produced which received very favorable comment both from investigators and from the trade which according to official test would be classed as a No. 1 machine finished printing paper.”
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