Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1911-03-23

world three or four decades ago, i'm
mense areas of Canada are today
For hundreds OF miles east and west
of the Superior shore the sawmill is
the life Of almost every town settle.
ment. Mountains of sawdust lay
everywhere. Sawdust is a nuisance,
is carted away at large expense, Is
a white elephant on the lumbermak-
ers' hands. If man should appear to
any one of the lumber manufacturers
tomorrow and say, Il will contract to
take all of your sawdust for ten
years." the owner would be delighted
to give it to him for hauling 1t away.
There are not only thousands, but
millions of tons of It, The mills do
not burn 1t in their furnaces, as many
American manufacturers are now do
ing, because they have more wood
trimmings than they can use.
How can this saWdust be used? Eas-
lily enough, and profitably enough, too.
A method has now been found where
by sawdust is easily and cheaply
moulded into briquettes as hard as
wood itself, and capable of producing
heat as powerful as that of coal.
BY mixing sawdust with glue-water
and soluble glass, and hydraulically
pressing 1t, a beautiful artificial wood
is made, which in France is called
bots durci, and which possesses q
beauty of appearance found only in
ebony, rosewood and mahogany.
Today tho Hpanar 1uacticup ic Opn
of national Importance. 1t has been
pointed out hundred times that the
newspaper, magazine and popular
novel reader is responsible for the CO.
ing Of our forests at a rate which
will leave us pretty nearly treeless a
few years from now. And meanwhile,
because of what we can class as moth
ing less than ignorance, the people of
this country and Canada are coolly
destroying an enormous paper supply
each year. For straw, after brief proc
ess, is paper. Last year l personally
saw thousands of tons of straw burn
ed by farmers on the Canadian prair-
les. Twenty million tons were burned
between Winnipeg and the coast!
The value of those stacks, in paper,
would be tremendous, and the figure
would be doubled by those which are
burned in our own western states
Scattered evenly over the grain fields
the burned straw would not be total
loss, as it would be of some assist
ance to the soil; but burned as it is,
in huge stacks, or "winrows," it does
more injury than good to the soil.
In the United States there are hun
dreds Of ways in which money is
made in the utilization of wastes
most of them thus far being in the
hands of moneyed men, like million
aire manufacturers, packers, steel pro-
ducers, and so on. The poor mans
opportunities" have not yet been TAX
en- advantage Of. Today, for instance,
there is scarcely a city of any size in
the United States where a man with
from two to five thousand dollars at
his command could not set up q by
product factory in waste fruit that
would pay him large dividends on his
money. What large Wholesale ;ruit
merchant has carted away from his
back door as waste" would pay the
salaries Of his employees if turned
into vinegar, flavors and oils" and
each of these by-products would be up
to the highest standard of the pure
food regulations, for decay in fruit is
a chemically harmless change.
In another way there are opportu-
mites for small capital In the sheep.
n
and Canada. Not many years ago
gold wash" was a waste; today 1t
yields treasure. 1t has been found
now that when a sheep is washed the
dirty water which has cleansed the
wool is of considerable value, and
that it will yield a wool fat" fifteen
per cent as great as the wool on the
sheep. From this fat five valuable
products are secured, used as the