Rubber For Wood

By Jack Dionne

_The other day I was very forcefully reminded of a new and very heavy inroad on the yse 9f wood, that is *orthy oi direct attention by the indurtry.

I went out to buy a new battery f,or my car. I looked at several batteries, and heard the service and quElity talk of several difierent makes of batteries.

And each battery man made practically this sanre statement to me: t'Our batteries have improved a great deal in the p_ast couple of years. For instance, we used to house all our batteries in wooden Lox. es, and now we build most of them in rubber boxes? Why? Well, rubber is so much more practical.. When the acid gets to a wooden box it eats it up. Also, the inside of a wooden box gets awfully dirty, and mouldy, after it has been used a while. You can't ilean it out degently. We can take the battery out of a rub. ber box, turn a hose into it, ana it is as clean an{ sood a! ne_w. Rubber ic very expensive, and getting higher, but we think it worth while even at that.tt

And there are tens of thousands of batteries for autos, radior, etc., being made in thb country every week, cased in rubber, that used to be cased in wood.

Each of ttre battery men I tatked to told me they used to use oak for their boxes-ctill do for the very large ones.

It seems to me there is an interesting proh lem for the lumber industry to look into.The wooden boxes are much the stronger, and will stand much hander usage. Isn't there an answer to the oijection to wood uttered by these htt""y T!eT? Perhaps t'ihere are other species of wood that will anawer the purposi and overcome the objectione. '

Anyway, it looks like here is an inroad on wood consum_ption that might be overcome by Eome practical attention.