The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1885-07-17
A CHAT ON CORKS.
a BUSINESS THAT is RAPIDLY GROW
ING IN IMPORTANCE.
Thousands of Sizes and Grades-Keeping
Out Heat with GranuIated Cork
Refuse Used on Picture
Frames-Wooden Ware.
lChicago Herald

"It's funny what prejudice will do. :"
said well known cork merchant I'VE
are compelled to import every year seE-
eral thousand dollars worth of hand-cut
corks These come chiefly from Ger
many. They are not so 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 ut the bottle it is made for Yet
some Of our old German brewers, bottlers
and druggists are so prejudiced in favor
of the products of fatherland that they
will buy hand cut corks every time. OF
course, price may have something to do
with it, for it is 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 a little cheaper than
our machine-cut corks. The cork bust
ness is growing very rapidly. This is a
ties must be corked with something.
There are twenty three 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 TIE cork oak All our banks
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
$4,000 a year. The cork has to be
steamed up before it is cut Corks are
made in thousands of sizes and grades,
from the sizes of a pin-head up to fOul
meters in diameter. We keep 900 sizes
and grades in stock. There's little cork
that sells at cents gross, and yet every
cork has to be handled three times in the
manufacture-oncei in cutting once in ia
pering, and the last time in asserting one
grade from the others.
None of the bark that comes over in
the ships goes to waste. We used to burn
the refuse, but we know better now. Up
between the joists, right under the roof OF
this building, we have packed fifteen
inches Of granulated cork. Last summer
this upper floor was as cool as any floor in
the building. The heat can't get through
that cork protector. The palace cal
builders use the same stuff to pack under
the floors of their cars to deaden 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 al
o non conductor of heat He has saved
thousands of dollars IN ice by the use of
that substance, and has hoped that mons
of his competitors would catch onto the
scheme. But he hoped In vain.
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 Rhine, 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 2
cents 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 Of
straw in Germany in the form of bottle
covers. These covers cost SIS per ], 1000,
and they are handmade. 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
100, 900 of these covers every month. AL
of these little tinfoil 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,
lust 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,
lin the timber country, making faucets,
| ;bungs. bung starters, wooden shovels,
! 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 "