The Portland daily press., 1897-05-29

loi Ull6 petCkdSo anu Will llo 4uJuHooAOA1
upon you to return or even care for the
package. The manufacture of them has
become very important industry IN
communities where, perhap little OF
nothing else in the manufacturing way
could be successful, and it is computed
that between 25, 900 and 80, 900 persons are
employed in this industry.
Go to the fruiterer, the grocer or green
grocer, or the florist andkyou will lind
each using baskets or cups made In SINH
lar ways and of veneers. The foundation
of this modern package business lies in
the invention of a machine which shaves
logs of wood into continuous strips OF
veneer, instead of the old way of saving
the veneers out like boards. That ma
chine was invented about twenty years
ago, and since then it has turned whole
forests into pliable strips of wood of the
thickness of ordinary cardboard and as
capable of manipulation, while possessing
qualities which make them available for
purposes for which cardboard would be
utterly useless.
Where poplar, beech, and birch and elm
and sweet gum grow, there are made the
baskets. The crates in which berries are
sent to market are made where white
spruce grows. So, if one were to hunt
along the outskirts of the farming dis
tricts, in New Hampshire, New York,
Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and in
Michigan, every once in awhile he would
find little town in which perhaps 200
persons were employed in making fruit
and berry packages. twenty-five or
thirty of these would be men, who are
hauling in the logs from the woods and
doing the heavier parts of the factory
work, and all the other girls and boys or
women, who do the lighter work.
The process of manufacture begins at
once with the barking of the logs. The
logs are then sawed into sections of about
1-2 feet in length and Immediately
plunged into long vat of boiling water
or sealed into tanks where live steam is
fed to them. They are steamed or boiled
for twenty-four hours. A crane picks
them up one by one and lands them be-
tween the centres of turning lathe,
where they are automatically centred and
clipped fast. AS they begin to turn a
broad sharp knife as long as the logs
comes up and slices the log spirally into
one immense ribbon Eof wood. AS the
ribbon glides over the knife, rollers catch
it and feed it under fixed knives which
slice it into the right widths for basket
parts. Other knives, set so as to cut
but part way through it, make the
m srks upon which the parts are afterward
folded. Other knives set in the faces of
the rollers cut the ribbon into proper
lengths. These pieces of veneer still have
to be shaped, and this is done by passing
them between other rollers set with
knives.
The work of the men ends with the
turning out of the veneers Now girls
take the formed pieces. Whether they are
making berry or peach baskets, the next
process is about the same. Each girl has
before her wooden form, shaped like
the baskets she is to make and banded
with iron where the tacks or staples are
to be driven. She deity folds strip of
tough birch or elm about the form for the
inner band, bends over this the pieces
which form the body and over these an
other band of tough wood. If she is MAX
ing tackled baskets, she already has her
mouth full of tacks, and she takes these
one by one and drives them through the
veneers, where they clinch against the
iron bands of the form. Those baskets
which are fastened with staples are tackled
by machine which carries coil of
wire which it bends and cuts into staples
and drives into place almost as rapidly as
a sewing machine stitches while the girl
holds the form under it.
Some girls will make 5000 berry baskets
in day, and the average worker can
thousand for the work. For peach bas-
kets they get 70 cents a hundred. The
bottoms Of these baskets are round pieces
of wood, and the machine which cuts
these is a clever piece ofwork. 1t is saw
made of cylinder of steel with the teeth
on it's bottom edge. Boards are piled up
dozen or more high and passed under
the saw. Each time it cuts down it cuts
clear through the pile, and soon turns
the whole pile into round blocks.
In other parts of the factory crates are
being sawed out and nailed together.
Each well-made crate will have sixty or
seventy nails in it, be fitted with hinges,
and hasp for the cover, and yet one of
these with thirtytwo quart berry bas
kets in it sells for only twenty-six cents.
Better crates, which are meant to be re-
turned to the farmer, and are provided
with metal corner pieces for strength and
are made of heavier material, sell for a
few cents more. Few of the baskets are
ever used second time, and it is esti-
mated that 200 100000 berry baskets alone
are used in this country very year.
The sixteen quart peach baskets, whic h
are also used for vegetables, sell for three
ana one nall GENUS each. In6y LILO UD6lr
way into use mostly from the peach
orchards of Delaware, New Jersey and
Georgia, and in good peach years the
number that is sold is enormous. 1t runs
into millions. The neat crates and bas-
kets in which grapes are sent to market
are another form of package of which
many thousandsare used. These usually
consist of the crate and eight baskets,
the whole holding forty pounds of grapes
Crate and baskets can be bought complete
for fourteen cents. Verbena baskets,
with double wire handles, are used in
great quantities by florists. These are
more expensive. They cost about s14
thousand or nearly one and a half cents
each OF butter dishes, ranging in size
from one pound TO those holding five
pounds each, it is estimated that 200 000,
600 year are used, and these cost from
sixty-five cents thousand for the small
er ones to 1925 thousand for the big
ones bound along the two ends with tin.
Pie dishes are used, too, by the million,
and they do not cost as much as the
sweetening in the pies.
There are many forms of baskets and
crates and some attempt has been made
to make even larger packages Of veneers.
Ono nf thoca bol If ha, .,raJ couprAd ha GEpt;