The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-11-26

w
 the demand, and
 prices would
 mdsoM have been way up by now if OpACs--Offaee of Price Administration and Civilian Supply to you--hadnt slapped down e maximum to keep the matter ufls der control.
 While that keeps the price in line, 1t still doesn't supply any moro burlap ard # the country should ever have to do q lot of real defense building, such aa sandbagging the Statue of Liberty, Boulder Dam, or any other national monument, things would really got tough,
 The only anSwer to the problem Is to start making bags out Of some- thing else. Right here ts where all that surplus cotton comes in. Also, it's right where the Department of Agricultures big program of find. tng new uses for farm surpluSes comes in, and all its research is just starting to pay dividends in Q constructive way,
 IN THE BAG FOR COTTON
 Bags formerly made of burlap, heeauge it was cheaper, will have to be made out Of cotton even though the price of cotton is being permitted to rise while the price of burlap is begged.
 Tn connection with cotton bale coverings, a curious sldelight: Cote ton bales have always been wrapped in hurlap because the hurlap wrap. ping for a bale Of cotton Is 2 i.2 pounds heavier than 6 cotton pat- tern wrapping would be, and cote ton iS bought and sold on gross weight basis. Cotton growers, think. Ing they have been beating the buy. CTS, have alwayS figured they were selling tliatiT l-2 pounds of cheap burlapt at cotton prices. For that simple reason and no other 1t has been impossible to persuade the tra- tionsbound cotton grower to change his WayS to the extent Of us. iEtg q cotton wrapped bale.
 Naturally the cotton buyers have known, that thlg z i.2 pounds of extra burlap weight was there and have rigeed their prices according. ly, but it has been impossible to sell that idea in the south, even though the use of cotton pattern wrappers for 6 crop of i2 million bales would have helped consume another i30,00o bales of surplus cot- ton.
 Use of bale wrappers Is only one of the new uses for cotton which have been worked out by the De. partfnent of Agriculture, largely through It's Southern Regional Re. search Laboratory at New Orleans. And in many Of these new us.5, defense scarclties may force Into use substitutes which logically should have been adopted years ago.
 Take the making Of high grade writing papers, known to the trade as rag papers because cotton rags have been digested to secure the fibeTs for the hard finish sheets, There is scarcity of rags now, SO the industry is gradually &hifting to the use of raw cotton, and some 20 leading paper mills will use 7600 bales in this manner in Ie4i. INSULATION MAY
 CUT SURPLUS
 Biggest hope for use of surplus cotton, piled up by the wartime loss of the export market, is in the naak- ing Of cotton insulation. The sur. face of this industry has just been scratched, say the cotton engineers, who found a way to fireproof cot. ton flores so they won't ignite even under the flame of a 2OO0. degree hlowtor:h. Being light in weight and not settling under vibration cotton irgulation has been found good for both airpiane cabins anc refrigerator express cars. It is also being used as house insulation, and offers potential for post-defense- effort industry that may help the south wade out from under its ter- rible cotton surplus.
 Experiments are going on to find other uses for the cotton slirpluses. such as cotton covered plywoods, use of cotton as a reinforcing mem- brane for bituminouS roads and air. port rlinways, curing sheets for con- crete roads, shade for nursery seed- liHlgs and so on.
 If people could just be persuaded to use these things. instead of do- ing them in the oi6-fashioned way, maybe this cotton surplus could b. reduced. But again, maybe it's all a good bit like the matter of cot- ton stockings.