Industry Leaders Proclaim New Ag" of\(/ood

Chemistry at Hand

Sarvmills of the future in Oregon and Washington and northern California may look like a Rube Goldberg contraption, because industry leaders are now proclaiming. a gew age of wood chemistry is at hand.

Hillman Lueddemann, Portland, president of the West Coast Lumbermen's Association, is taking the forefront in urging lumbermen to promote. encourage and finance manufacturing plants and chemical works which tvould use wood as a ra\,v material.

The lumber chieftain believes chemical plants can profitably be built adjoining sawmills to use the leftover scrap, trinr, edgings, shavings and sawdust. He cited an amazing variety of products which can be made from rvood by application of chemical treatments.

Edibles for man and beast, rank high on Lueddemann's list. Feedlng molasses (and the region is short of protein feeds), wonder drugs, rayon, fibres, ship stores, pulp products, pla.stics, tannins, wax, ethyl alcohol, methalene, turpentine, lig,nin, explosives, and land extenders are just a few of the astonishing list of goods for man u.hich can be taken from wood.

i,ueddemann hailed many new plants, almost unsung, u.hicl.r have been built by the lumbermen in recent years and rl hicl.r in fact introduce the nerv age of u'ood chemistry. He said the factory at Longvielv which manufactures eleven ..'alual>le commercial products from Douglas fir bark is an example. Rapid expansion of plants making hardboard {rom t'ziste u'ood is another tip-off to the future.

The lumber leader said the most encouraging ne'rvs is the disclosure that this great potential 'n'ood chemical industrv can get its rarv products from present-day waste or sa'n.rrill leftovers. He said kraft paper milis alone, using sau'mill sc:ap, rvere saving 400,000,000 feet of timber yearly and rr'ould soon be saving 700 million feet, from Oregon and \\'ashington forests.

Lazy Trees Don't Survive

Forest conservation is vl'ise use,. not disuse. There is wasteful extravagance in disuse, for trees ultimately die and are lost to profitable use.

Foresters Convert Powersaw Into Portable Fire Engine

Springfield, Ore.Foresters at Weyerhaeuser 'fimber Company's Springfield branch can turn an ordinary powersarn' into a portable fire engine in 90 seconds.

The gasoline-powered saws that fall and buck timber on company logging operations may now be used to pump water on a forest fire. They will dra'lv the u'ater from srreams, lakes or ponds in the woods.

With attachments developed by the foresters, standard auxiliary fire-engine pumps may be coupled to powersaw motors. It takes only a minute and a half to remove a .nri' f.o- its motor and attach the fire pump.

A pump coupled to a seven-horsepower sau' motor will spray a fire with two streams of water through 5/16-inch nozzles at 100 pounds pressure. A pump attached to a five-horsepower saw motor will spray rvater from trvo hoses and nozzles at 75 pounds pressure.

The foresters at Springfield have been testing the po'n'ersa\\'-pump combination for the past vear and see it as a valuable fire-fighting tool.

A seven-horsepo\ rer motor and pump weigh only 97 pounds and may be moved quickly and easily to a fire. If necessary, saw motors and pumps mav be strapped to packboards and carried into areas not accessible to bulkier and heavier equipment.

Porversaws, and loggers r.r.ho knorv horv to operate them, are usuallv rvorking in the rvoods before a fire starts, the foresters point out. At first sign of smoke, the (rS-pound fire-engine pumps can be brought .up and attache<l to saw motors. Little time rvill be lost in putting lvater on a fire.

Morrntings and couplings for attaching the pumps to the sa'rv motors u'ere invented by Bob Gehrman, Weyerhaeuser's Springfield branch forester. The der.ices have been rnanufactured in the companv's n.:achirTe shop at Springfield.

Gehrman has applied for a patent on the mounting and coupling, but he said all forest industrv companies will be granted licenses to make the devices for their own use.

"\\'e u,ant to make this fire-fighting tooi available to any timlrer o\\'ner n'ho t.ants to use it," he explained.

'I'ree farms in the acres to more than redwood region range in size from )7 65,000 acres under one on'nership.