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Answer
It is probably hard to get an exact number, but here is how I would guess an answer to this question.
First we have to define what a "tree" is. Is it a giant redwood tree or a little weeping willow? Most
paper is made from pine trees, so I went out in the woods and looked at some pines. Most are about a foot
in diameter and 60 feet tall. Ignoring taper, that's about 81,430 cubic inches of wood (Pi * radius squared
* length = 3.14 * 6^2 * 60 * 12). I have a 2 x 4 piece of lumber in the backyard. It weights about 10
pounds and it contains 504 cubic inches of wood (3.5 * 1.5 * 8 * 12). That means a pine tree weighs
roughly 1,610 pounds (81430 / 504 * 10). I know that in paper manufacture you turn the wood into pulp.
The yield is about 50% - about half of the tree is knots, lignin, etc. that is no good for paper. So that
means a pine tree yeilds about 805 pounds of paper. I have a reem of paper for a xerox machine here and it
weighs about 5 pounds and contains 500 sheets (you often see paper descibed as "20 pound stock" or "24 pound
stock" - That is the weight of 500 sheets of 17" x 22" paper). So a tree would produce 805 / 5 * 500 = 80,500
sheets of paper. You can see that this is all fairly rough, and I have weighed things on a bathroom scale, but
you get the idea.
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