PURPOSE: To improve paper feeding performance as well as to equalize the number of paper feedings of respective hoppers, by automatically selecting a hopper whose number of paper feeding cumulative counter values is minimum as well as to select M stage hoppers (M≤N) out of N stage hoppers as a group.

CONSTITUTION: Five-stage hoppers 2-6 are provided to a device 1 with a multistage hopper, and papers 11 are discharged to a stacker 9 after being fed from respective hoppers 2-6 and sent to a printing part 7 through a longitudinal carrying unit 8. The selection of the hoppers from which the papers are fed is executed by key inputting operation from an operation panel 17 or assignment from an upper device 18. A control part 10 governs interface control among paper feeding control, hopper selection and the upper device 18. In this case, M stage (M≤N) hoppers are selected as a group in a device equipped with N stage hoppers. When what hopper out of hoppers selected as the group at the M stage is decided to be selected, the hopper is selected in such order that the number of cumulative paper feedings of respective hoppers are few.