The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1889-12-26
THOUSANDS OF CIGAR BOXES.
Making Them is a Great Industry
What Becomes of Them ALP
From the PHILADELPHIA Inquirer.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer.
"Over 2o000.000 cigars are manu-
featured every day in the United States
alone, said prominent dealer the other
day, land this enormous number requires
III the neighborhood of 100000
boxes for their keeping Con
sequently there are over 200 factories in the
country turning out boxes as fast, or faster.
than cigars are made to fill them And it is
surprising what an extensive and expensive
plant is required for the making of cigar
boxes. A complete box-making plant is "A
planning mill, a sllk-spinning mill, and q
printing establishment combined. Besides
putting the pieces of wood together, fully
equipped factory weaves and fixes up its
own silk ribbon wrappers, and does It's own
printing.
The wood of which these boxes are made
comes from Mexico, Central America, and
the West Indies. The manufacturers use
very little besides red cedar, and that kind
of timber is rather scarce in this country.
They buy the wood for these boxes in large,
heavy logs, and then cut them up to suit
themselves. Only the cheaper grades of
boxes ara made from poplar, cut in the
west, which is afterward stained to initiate
the red cedar. But the only real good wood
for packing cigars is the cedar which comes
from Mexico, Central America, and the
West Indies The cellar wood has pecul-
lar pungent odor, which adds very much
TO the taste and flavor of good cigar
TIL quality Of the cedar is recognized by
the pork packers, for they take all t1e cedar
sawdust TO use as fuel in curing their extra
grades of bacon.
I'm the first place the logs are cut up into
thin layers or veneers. These are taken to
the drying department, where they are
placed on racks for a day or so to dry out
thoroughly. The veneers are then run
through heavy steel rollers and thus come
out neatly polished After being sawed
into strips the veneers are cut up into
proper lengths. The pieces are now ready
to be put together into the form Of a box.
The pieces are nailed together, not by hand
but by machines. The only thing done by
hand is the lids Workmen take a narrow
strip of cloth and paste it on the edge of the
lid in order to form hinge for the box.
| This being done, the inside Innings and labels
| are affixed. Lettering on the wooden sides
| of cigar boxes is done By printing presses
much heavier than in newspaper Offices.
A great deal of care is taken in selecting
| labels, for it is not uncommon that a
gorgeous high-colored Autographed label
sells cigar. But ouly the poorer grades
Of cigara are now advertised by means of q
fiaring label. The better grades of cigars
have, as rule, neat and 1nconspicuous
sign. Thus some Havanas are satisfied to
| commend their good points to smokers by a
wise or witty motto, while others are con
tent with pretty Spanish or Cuban home
scene. Yet these MODEST labels ara quite
an item in the cost of box, as rich. quiet
looking label may cost about 5 or 6 cents
apiece.
There is a mystery about cigar boxes,
namely: Where do they go after once being
used! The law requires that the stamps
and printed sides shall be defaced. and thus
the box is rendered useless A great many
boxes are made over into new ones. A large
box holding $50 cigars can easily be cut
down into one holding 100. One manufact-
urer recently endeavore1 to get around the
Law by cutting up tho old boxes, and by
calling it kindling wood was not prevented
for time from using boxes over again.
But most Of the boxes are really used for
fire wood. AS good cigar box costs from
3 to cents, it seems wastetul to uso them
in this way. Old cigar boxes are put to all
kinds of curious uses. Some are kept by
lovers for their letters; others take the place
of safe, and are used to hide money in I;
while others still are used for nail boxes
Thousands of boxes, which every year are
cast aside after having been mutilated and
defaced, 20 nobody knows where.n