He Was No Slouch, Either.....

There's an old story about the group of businesSmen who were discussing the great inventions of history, and in turn the inventor of the telephone, the cotton gin, the gasoline engine, anaesthesia, sulpha, and scores of other things that have made our modern civilization-rvas named and praised. And then a thoughtful guy was heard to remark that "the fellow who invented interest was no slouch, either."

I agree. And at the same time I want to add another to the long list of inventive benefactors of humanity, whoever he was-the man who invented plywood. It has been well said that the man who invented shoes carpeted the earth with leather; and the man who first thought up plywood is slowly but certainly carpeting the earth rvith wood -with stout, practical, attractive wood, and doing it in the smartest sort of fashion.

We used to think that a board could be no wider than the log it was sawn from. Plywood taught us better than that. We thought a board could be no longer than the log it came from. But we can make boards out of any possible length desired-with plywood. We used to think that the clear lumber we could get out of a log was just the total number of feet of clear boards the log would produce. And now we know that ten to twenty times as much clear lum-

ByJrck Dionne

ber can be produced from a log as the number of board feet of clears. We used to think that the lower grades of lumber could be used only for low'grade purpoies; and plywood taught us that we can so cut and arrange and glue and press that low grade stock that it becomes the strength and muscle of plywood cores, without which the beautiful outer slices of clears could not function.

Yes Sir, every time I watch men making plywood that is as attractive to look at as the most beautiful solid board, yet several times as strong, as unbreakable, and as useable as the solid boards made from the same tree, I say to myself that the guy who thought that thing out and put it into practice was "no slouch," either, any more than the inventor of interest. He made it possible for the lower grades of the wood to serve a greater purpose as plywood cores than they ever could have served as boards; and made it possible for the world to have the use of many times the clear wood surfaces in the shape of plywood it ,could ever have as sawn finish. He multiplied the quality wood, and gave strength and pride to the lower grade core wood. He gave the tree more to be proud of, more to offer in the way of human service than it ever had before.

To the guy, whoever he was, that invented plywoodmy deep respect !