The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1906-06-19

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lean people consume more paint, both
In the aggregate and per capita, than
any other people in the world. In a
recently published article on the sub
| ject 1t was figured that our yearly
1 consumption is over 100000, 900 gallons
Of paints Of all kinds, of which over
one-half is used in the paintings Of
| houses.
| The reason for this great consump-
tion is twofold: large proportion Of
our buildings. especially in small
towns and rural districts, are con-
structed of wood, ana we, as a people.
are given to neatness and cleanliness.
For, take 1t all in all, there Is nothing
so cleanly or so sanitary as paint.
Travel where we will throughout the
country. everywhere we find the neat
cheerful painted dwelling, proclaiming
at once the prosperity and the self
respect Of our population,
Fifty years ago this was not so;
painted dwellings, while common in
the larger cities and towns, were the
exception in the rural districts; be-
cause, on the one hand, large pro-
portion of those buildings were tenn
porary makeshifts, and, on the other
hand, because paint was then a luxury,
expensive and difficult to obtain in the
out-of-the-way places, and requiring
special knowledge and much prepara-
tion to fit it for use.
The introduction of ready mixed or
prepared paints, about 1860, changed
the entire aspect of affairs. AS the
Jack-of-all-trades told the Walking
Delegate In one of Octave Thanet's
stories ANY one can slather paint"
The insurmountable difficulty with
our predecessors was to get the paint
ready for "slathering." That the coun-
try was ready for paint in convenient,
popular form is shown by the imme-
date success of the industry and its
phenomenal growth in fifty years from
nothing TO 60000.O00 gaIlons-the esti-
mated output for 1900.
Some pretty severe things have been
written about and said against this
class of paints, especially by painters
and manufacturers of certain kinds Of
paste paints Doubles in many in
stances these strict1res have been JUS
tilted and some fearfully and wonder
fully constructed mixtures have in the
past been worked of on the guileless
consumer in the shape Of prepared
paint. But such products have had
their short day and quickly disap-
peared, and The 200 cnterprising man.
ufacturers that produced them have
come to grief in the bankruptcy
courts or have .earne. by costly ex-
perience that honesty is the best pol
Icy and Lave reformed their ways.
The chief exceptions to this ule are
some mail order houses who sell direct
to the country trade, at a very lew
bNl IL
price Of linseed OIL The buyer of such
goods, ike the buyer Of a ''gold brick"
has only himself to blame If he fin,
his purchase worthless With gold
selling at any bank or mint at fixed
discount; and with linseed oil quoted
everywhere at fifty to seventy cents a
gallon. manufacturers do not sell a
pure linseed oil paint at thirty or forty
cents gallon.
The composition Of prepared paints
differs because paint experts lave not
yet agreed II to tn best pigments
and because the daflv results of tests
on a large scale are constantly i'm
proving tie formulas Of manufacture
ers; but all have come to the conclu-
sion that the essentials OF good paint
are pure linseed oil. fine grin7ing and
thorough incorporation, and in these
particulars all the producls CT repu-
table manufacturers correspond; all
first class prepared paints are thor
oughly mixed and ground and the liq-
uid base Is almost exclusively pure
linseed oil, the necessary volatile
.thinners" and Japan dryers.
The painters opposition 90 such pro-
ducts Is based largely on self-interest.
He wnnt. to mix the aint himself
and to be paid for doing 1t; and to a
certain class of painters 1t is no rec
ommendation for a paint to say that it
will last five or ten years. The longer
a paint lasts the longer he will have
to wait for the job OF repainting. The
latter consideration has no weight with
the consumer, and the former Is a
false idea OF economy. Hand labor
can never be as cheap or as efficient
as machine work, anR every time the
painter mixes paint, did he but know
1t. he is losing money. because he can
buy a better paint than he can mix
at less than it costs him to mix it,
Prepared paints have won, not only
on their actual merits, but on their
convenience and economy. They are
comparatively cheap, and they are In
ccmparabiy handy. But when al IS
said, the experienced painter is the
proper person to apply even ready
mixed paint He knows better than
any one else the when and how
and the difference between painting
and ''slatherfngT is much greater than
it appears to novice. Every one to
his trade, and after all painting is the
painters trade and not the household
er's.