Vagabond Editorials

(Continued from Page 6) story of aluminum. A most impressive article. It's only a few years aluminum was born. And it came into a world supplied with metals. Ircin, steel, copper, zinc, been supplying the needs of man since the What aluminum got, aluminum had to find markets it must create and demonstrate aluminum hired brains and plenty of it, uilt and put their finding gang to work. Today there are several hundred thousand practical uses for aluminum-all found through*research. world's most wonderful homes, a lumber dealer got a lot of calls for wood from which to build antique looking furniture. He finally bought a carload of "pecky" Red Cypress from Louisiana, tofill thetill It was an instantaneous hit.

Had a big talk the other day with an asphalt man. Neither the auto, the radio, nor any other industry has made more definite and amazing advanges and changes in the past five years than has asphalt. And as a result of their research and laboratory work, wonderful new products are constantly appearing that keep their business alive. One asphalt firm has a research department of approximately fifty men. "All they have to do is find new things that asphalt will do, new ways that asphalt can be used, new products made of or based on asphalt, that the public will grab for. We don't use all the things they develop, but we use lots of them-enough to make that department the best investment we ever made." Get the idea? One firm; with fifty men in that department, finds that it pays in pure gold.

For the benefit of those who have never seen it, "pecky" Cypress is the most forlorn looking of all commercial woods. It is apparently riddled with big worm holes, and filled with defects. It looks like a very poor grade of Number Four. But it is deceptive. The wood, where the holes are not, is sound, stout, and most practical. If you can find a place to make a nail hold, the wood is stout, won't rot, will last forever. The Cypress people created a big place for it'

And you should see the furniture they have been making with it in Beverly Hills. Wonderful looking tables, buffets, chests, cabinets, etc., are made with rough edges, uneven ends, and hammered rough hardware. These articles of furniture have gone into the most beautiful homes in the town. They apply grey paint and rub it in unevenly. It makes the dirty, rickety, fake antiques that your antigue dealer has been offering look sad by contrast. The wormhole looking defects in the boafds add wonderfully to the look of age. And why not? That wood probably lay for thousands of years in the mud and water of some Louisiana

In Beverly Hills, California, home of thousands of the swamp.