The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1885-09-24
A CHAT ON coRKs.
4 Bus,nsss That IL Rapidly Growing in
Importance.

Importance.
SITS funny what prejudice will do"
said well-known col k merchant. "We
are compelled to import every year
several thousand dollars worth of
hand cut corks. These come chiefly
from Germany, They are not so good
IS the machine-cut corks of our own
country, as they vary in size and are
but approximately round. A machine
cut cork will always fit the bottle it is
made for. Yet some of our old Ger
man brewers, bottlers. and druggists
are SO prejudiced in favor of the prod
ucts 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 show
ing how cheap labor can get, that those
corks, cut one by one by hand in Ger
many, 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
bottles must be corked with something.
There are twenty-three cork factories
in the country, but the one in Pitts
| VI WulCh VIC fio tnO Oi0nCh,
works up little more than one-half of
all the bark imported every year.
Cork, you know, is the bark, not
the wood, of the 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
can be skinned every six or eight
years. About 81, 900, 900 worth of the raw
bark is brought to this country every
year. There is no tariff on it, but a
tariff of % per cent. on the manufact-
ured product. The importations of
manufactured corks run about $3.50, 900
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 pin head up to four meters
in diameter. We keep 900 sizes and
grades in stock. There's q little cork
that sells at cents gross, and yet
every cork has to be hand ed three
times in the manufacture-once in cut
ting, once in tapering, and the last
time in asserting one grade from the
other.
"None of the bark that comes over in
he ships goes to waste. We used to
burn the refuse, but we know better
now. Up between the ;oists, right un-
der 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 car builders use
the same stuff to PACK under the floors
] Of their cars 10 Ceaden the sound and
( under the roofs to keep the heat out.
sold fifty car loads of granulated
bark to certain gentleman to pack
under the roofs of his refrigerator cars
as non-conductor of heat. He 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.
"The finest OF the refuse is used by
| pictureframe makers in decorations.
They sprinkle it on their bronzed or
| japanned frames. See that picture ?
Well, this old castle along the Rhine,
the rocks, hills, trees, vineyard, flow
| ers and birds-an exquisite landscape,
| is it not Pare all made from cork, press
ed like papier mache. 1t is German
novelty, and a neat one. Fruit and egg
cases, ice houses and ice machines, are
often packed with granulated cork,
which costs only two cents pound.
"We beat the old world at cutting
corks, but it is rather strange that
America should import tons of straw.
Yet we do every year buy inn
mense quantities of straw in Ger
many in the form of bottle-covers.
These covers cost So per 1000, and
they are handmade. They cannot be
made for one-fourth the sum in this
country, until somebody gets up ma
chine to do it with. We import some
thing like 100, COO of these covers every
month. All of these little tinfoil caps
for wine and soda bottles come from
Paris. A New \ ork 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 hermeti-
cally 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 shovels. cork drivers,
and vinegar measures and tunnels, each
out Of one piece of wood without joint
or seam. AS for bungs, Cincinnati
mi9ht properly be called the bung-
town of America, as the are made all
the buncs used in this country. One
factory there ships 800 barrels of bungs
every day. "-ChicGgo Herald.
Tho Calinh anI fka Waover