16 



Each quality is subdivided again into various grades of superiority: 



Thick into superfine, superior, ordinary, and inferior. 



Ordinary into superfine, first, second, third, and fourth qualities. 



Bastard or thin into good, ordinary, inferior, and refuse. 



These grades are again divided into classes, " champagne cork" being 

 the highest quality. 



USES. 



Cork was not generally used for stopping bottles until toward the 

 end of the seventeenth century, though the Greeks and Eomans used 

 it for their wine vessels to a limited extent. 



The importance of the cork crop has been appreciated in Spain only 

 since 1850. The uses are numerous, each country having its own pecul- 

 iar manner of utilizing this bark. The bottle cork is of course the 

 article most largely manufactured and most universally used. In Spain 

 are manufactured beehives, pails, pillows, window lights; in Portugal, 

 roofing, linings for garden walls, fences, etc.; in Italy, images, paving 

 for footpaths, sometimes used in buttresses of village churches; in 

 Turkey, cabins and coffins; in Morocco, drinking vessels, plates, tubs, 

 house conduits; in Algeria, shoes, wearing apparel, saddles, horse- 

 shoes, armor, common boats, landmarks, fortifications, furniture, etc. 

 The possibilities and usefulness of this bark are seemingly unlimited, 

 and it is as great a necessity to the Algerian as the agave is to the 

 Mexican or the palm to the Arab. 



In France cork is used for insulating boilers, and being a bad con- 

 ductor of heat and cold it is frequently used in situations where pro- 

 tection from either is necessary. Of the waste cork from the cutting of 

 bottle stoppers, about 30 per cent is utilized for filling cushions, horse 

 collars, hats, mattresses, also for the manufacture of cork- dust bricks, 

 which are used where excessive dryness is required, and for wheels 

 having small diameters. Pasteboard of a high grade is manufactured 

 from French cork. The ground cork is thoroughly mixed with paper 

 pulp by means of a machine, and the water is expressed by heavy Hol- 

 land presses and the material dried. Cork w T aste is also used in the 

 manufacture of linoleum, in lifeboats, buoys, etc., in insoles for shoes, 

 artificial limbs, cork concrete, and many other articles where lightness 

 and elasticity are required. 



THE CORK OAK IN AMERICA. 



The following notes were kindly furnished for this Bulletin by Prof. 

 Charles H. Shinn, of the University of California: 



There are twelve or fourteen cork oak trees growing on the farm of Mr. S. Richard- 

 son, Alhambra post-office, San Gabriel Valley, California, about 4 miles from Pasa- 

 dena. The soil is a sandy loam, irrigated as required. The site is near a creek bank 

 and is occu]iied mainly by an orange grove. 



