Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1885-06-26
A CHAT ON CORKS.
A BUSINESS THAT is RAPIDLY GROW
ING IN IMPORTANCE.
Thousands of sizes and Gradcs-Keeping
Out Heat with Graduated Cork
Refuse Used on Picture
Wooden Ware.
lChicago Herald

ats funny what prejudice will do,
said u well known cork merchant. I'VE
are compelled TO import every year sew
eral thousand dollars worth of hand-cut
corks These come chiefly from Ger.
many. They are not 50 good as the ma.
chine cut Corks of our own country, as
they vary in size and are but approx.
mately round A machine-cut cork Will
always fit the bottle it is made for ct
some of our old German brewers, bottlers
and druggists are so pre- udiCed in favor
of the products of fatherland that they
will bay hand cut corks every time. Of
course, price may have something TO do
with it, for it S peculiar fact, and one
showing how cheap labor can get, that
those corks cut one by one by hand in
Germany, are brought over here, tariff
paid, and then sold little cheaper than
our machine-cut corks. The cork bust
ness is growing very rapidly. This is a
great country for bottled goods, and bot
ties must be corked with something.
There are twenty.thrce cork factories in
the country, but the one in Pittsburg. of
which we are the branch, works up
little more than one half of all the bark
imported every year
Cork, you know, is the bark, not the
wood, of cork oak All our barks
come from spain and Portugal There
they keep cork woods 1t doesn't kill the
tree to take its bark away, and it can be
skinned every six or eight years. About
$1,000 900 of the raw bark is brought to
this country every year There is no
tariff on it, but tariff of % per cent on
the manufactured product. The impor-
tations Of manufactured corks run about
$50, 600 year The cork has to be
steamed up before it is cut. Corbs are
uade in thousands of sizes and grades,
from the sizes of a pin head up to four
meters in diameter. We keep 600 81 es
and grades in stock There's little cork
that sells at Il cents a gross, and vet every
cork has TO be handled three times in the
manufaCturc-once in cutting once in ia.
pering, and the last time in asserting one
grade from the hhers.
None of the bark that comes over in
the ships goes to waste. w used to burn
the refuse but we know better now Up
between the ioists, right under the roof of
this building, we have packed fifteen
inches of granulatcd cork. Last summer
this upper floor was as cool as any floor in
the building The heat cant get through
that cork protector The palace car
builders use the same stuff to pack under
the floors of their cars to dcaden the
sound and under the roofs to keep the
heat out | sold fifty car loads of granu-
lated bark to a certain gentleman TO pack
under the roofs of his refrigerator cars as
non-conduCtor of heat lie has saved
thousands of dollars in ice by the use of
that substance and has hoped that none
of his competitors would catch onto the
scheme. But he hoped in vain.
1.-The finest of the refuse is used by pic
ture.frame makers in decorations They
sprinkle it on their bronzed or iapanned
frames See that picture? Well, this
old castle along the hhine the rocks,
hills trees vineyard, flowers and birds
an exquisite landscape, is it not?-all
made from cork, pressed like papier ma.
che. 1t is a German novelty, and a
neat one. Fruit and egg cases, ice houses
and ice machines, are often packed with
the granulated cork, which costs only ?
cents a pound.
1--WE beat the old world at cutting
corks, but it is rather strange that Amer.
lea should import tons Of straw. Yet we
do every year buy immense quantities CT
straw in Germany in the form of bottle
covers. These covers cost IS per 900,
and they are hand made. They cannot be
made for one fourth the sum in this coun
try, until somebody gets up machine to
do it with. We import something like
100000 Of these covers every month. All
of these little tinfol caps for wine and
soda bottles come from Paris. A New
York firm has tried to compete but they
can't do it. We have $50 900 at the depot,
just arrived from Paris. They are shipped
in Theoretically sealed cases.
But this country leads in wooden ware.
Perhaps you don't know it, but the best
wooden ware maker in the United States
carried on business in Chicago for twenty.
five years. He is now over in Michigan,
in the timber country, making faucets,
bungs, bung starters wooden shoves,
cork drivers, and vinegar measures and
tunnels, each out of one piece of wood
without joint or seam. AS for bungs.
Cincinnati might properly be called the
bungtown of America. as there are made
all the bungs used in this country. One
factory there ships 200 barrels of bungs
every day.
New Disposition of Grandmothers.