Armstrong Cork Company

“ Experts exercise careful supervision and actually test each lot of corks as they come from the operatives in order that uniform standards may be maintained from day to day and month to month.
When past the keen eye of the tester, the cork, after its long journey through the factory, passes either direct to the packing department or to the warehouses. This last point involves a problem which is often very puzzling and difficult of solution. Thousands of dollars’ worth of corks are placed in the warehouses every year to [Pg 35] remain there indefinitely. ”

“ Thousands of square feet have been installed in hotels, libraries, museums, clubs, and private residences.
Cork flour is another by-product, and is manufactured from the waste bark by much the same method as that employed in grinding wheat. This beautiful light brown dust is one of the chief constituents of high grade linoleum. In the Company’s plant at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, thousands of yards of this material are produced every day. ”

“ It remained for the elder Pliny, however, in his wonderful work on natural history, written in the first century of the Christian era, to make the most remarkable reference to cork to be found in ancient literature: “The cork oak is but a very small tree and its acorns of the very [Pg 7] worst quality * * *; the bark is its only useful product, being remarkably thick, and if removed will grow again * * *. ”

“ Bales of Cork being unloaded at Pittsburgh
The speed and skill with which this work is done is astounding. So slight is the difference between some of the grades that to the inexperienced eye none can be seen whatever, and yet success hinges on the care and skill exercised in this and the other sortings that follow.
Corks punched from Strips
In manufacturing corks it must be understood in the first place that the thickness of a given piece of bark [Pg 26] determines the maximum diameter of the stopper which can be made from it, as the cutting is done across and not with the grain. ”

“ Hundreds of cold storage warehouses, abattoirs, fur storage vaults, breweries, ice plants, dairies, creameries, candy factories, and bakeries are insulated with it, not to mention refrigerated rooms in hotels, clubs, private residences, and aboard the ships of the United States, British, and Italian navies.
Another by-product, and the last one of importance, is cork pipe covering for insulating cold pipe lines. ”

“ The keen edge of the slicer first confronts the sheets of bark, and it is at this point that the first mechanical obstacle in cork manufacture has to be overcome, [Pg 27] for the soft, light, elastic material is, withal, very difficult to cut, as may be determined by simple personal experiment. ”

“ Life-preservers, ring buoys, yacht fenders, mooring and anchoring buoys are the specialties of one department, while another pays particular attention to the manufacture of seine and gill corks, and bobbers for fishing lines.
Instrument and Fishing Rod Handles
So varied, in fact, are the forms which cork assumes that the complete [Pg 38] cataloguing of the functions which it fills in the world to-day would be well-nigh impossible. ”

“ Each bale is carefully stenciled with marks indicating grade or quality. Loaded directly into ocean-going steamers alongside the Seville docks, not infrequently a whole ship’s cargo of cork at a time is transported to Philadelphia, New York, or Baltimore, and thence freighted to the Pittsburgh factory.
Cutting Corks by Hand
From the mountain of cork unloaded at its doors a host of different articles are produced by means of wonderfully ingenious machinery coupled with hundreds of keen brains, for the human element must always play a large part in cork [Pg 24] manufacture. ”

“ Italy, too, with the help of Sardinia and Sicily, continues to be quite a factor in meeting the demand for the crude material, while across the Strait of Gibraltar the sun-scorched forests of Morocco are as yet undeveloped. ”

“ After eight or ten years this is also removed, and, while more valuable than the virgin cork, it is not as fine in quality as that of the third and subsequent strippings, which follow at regular intervals of about nine years. At the age of about forty years the oak begins to yield its [Pg 14] best bark, continuing productive as a rule for almost a century, although cork trees several hundred years old are not unknown. ”

“ The [Pg 34] work itself calls for such a peculiar combination of faculties that only one out of every five operatives who are given preliminary training in this department is found satisfactory; but so highly skilled do the regular workers become that the sorting of thirty-five thousand corks may be considered an average day’s labor. ”

“ With these exceptions, however, the major part of the yield is exported to the United States, England, France, Germany, Austria, Russia, Denmark, or Sweden, to be turned into finished form.
Weighing Bark in the Forest
The cork oak, known botanically as Quercus suber, attains a height of from twenty to sixty feet and measures sometimes as much as four feet in diameter. ”