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About the Humble Bung 



Consider the bung. 



The bung is the blushing violet of the wood specialty field. 

 Modest, unobtrusive, it performs its work, and it is seldom that 

 the calcium light is thrown in its direction, or that industry stops 

 to give to it the meed of praise which it deserves. But regarded as 

 a commercial proposition, the bung is some product. Like the pin, 

 nobody knows what becomes of it, and yet it takes millions to supply 

 the demand. 



A lot of time and thought are spent on devising the best plans of 

 making tight barrels. Manufacturers of machinery for making 

 staves and barrels have worn permanent corrugations in their lofty 

 brows figuring out new ideas, and incidentally providing a round 

 hole for the bung to stop. Few of them, however, have ever thought 

 much about the bung itself. It has been taken for granted. 



Every little barrel has a bung-hole all its own, and consequently 

 needs a bung to stop it, once the package is used for the purpose 

 intended. But this is not all. The barrel frequently lasts for many 

 successive uses, and each of these require a new bung. Thus the 

 whisky barrel, that aristocrat of the tight package field, can be 

 utilized but once by the distiller, but after it passes from that indus- 

 try it goes to the vinegar, pickle or oil handler, and requires 

 a brand new bung in order to carry out its work in the new field 

 to which it is introduced. 



The beer-keg, as most lumbermen know, is a busy little worker, 

 lasting for a couple of years or more, with reeoopering, and after 

 the thirsty consumer has emptied it each time, back it goes to the 

 brewery — but minus its bung. Therefore the brewer is a regular 

 customer of the bung manufacturer, and the quotations on bungs, 

 f. o. b. the Braiihaus, as we of the Vaterland have it, are studied 

 just as carefully as the stove founder looks at pig iron prices. 



The bung is one of the most versatile members of the forest 

 products family. Instead of being exclusive and snobbish, as for in- 

 stance, the whisky stave is, and insisting that only one wood is 

 good enough for use in its production, the bvng embraces them all 

 with a wide and inclusive affection that bars the gates to no wood 

 that has enough clear material to fill the bung-hole in a tight 

 and workman-like manner. In fact, while the bung is usually 

 made of poplar, it is not unusual to find oak, gum, cedar and even 

 pine figuring in its manufacture. Poplar, however, is the fatlier 

 of the bung, and Mr. Poplar Bung is the most important member 

 of the Bung family circle. Oak Bung is a rather sizable youth, but 

 Gum Bung and his little brothers are merely small shavers who 

 are given a place at the second .table and not allowed around 

 when company is present. That, however, doesn 't affect the truth 

 of the statement that bung manufacture permits the use of a wide 

 variety of woods. 



It is rather surprising to the uninitiated to learn that the bung 

 requires a pretty good grade of lumber. At first blush it would 

 seem that the bung producer would make money by buying up low- 

 grade material, working up the good and throwing away the rest, 

 since a bung of standard dimensions is li^ inches across the top 

 and is one inch in height, so that not a great deal of material is 

 required to make it. The bung factory manager has evidently learned 

 by experience that the losses through waste, as well as the expenses 

 of handling and inspection, are so great as to justify him in speci- 

 fying a rather good grade, and consequently the bung gets No. 1 

 and No. 2 poplar, for instance, and correspondingly good quality 

 in oak, gum and other woods which are used in this business. 



The board which goes into the bung factory must be clear, and 

 must be without sap stains or worm-holes. Poplar is easier to get 

 in what might be called the "bung grade," and this may account 

 for its precedence in the matter of consumption. It must be a lot 

 of satisfaction to the kings of the poplar forests as they expand to 

 magnificent height and develop trunks which are round and plump 

 and straight, to realize that their choicest boards, next the heart, 

 may one day find their way into that most exclusive of manufac- 

 turing plants, the bung factory. 



—30— 



While the bung itself is a hail-fellow-well-met, those who are inter- 

 ested in him are not of that type. They require that the lumber 

 which is seeking preferment in the choice business of bung manu- 

 facture must stand more rigid inspection than almost any otlier class 

 of material, and the board which crosses the factory threshold has 

 been given, in effect, a passport to the 400 of Bungdom. 



In the same connection it should be noted that the factory processes 

 of bung production are not generally known, for most of them are 

 controlled by secret devices which their properietors are not desirous 

 of making public. In fact, it is said by some that one of the largest 

 bung plants in the country, which has made millions for its owners. 

 is not only closed to visitors, but is not even viewed by employes 

 who are not needed in the operation of the machinery. The latter 

 is specially designed for the purpose, but it is said that it has not 

 been patented because of the fear that others might adapt the idea 

 and thus get in a jjosition to utilize similar machinery. As the field 

 is necessarily a limited one, these precautions are worth using. 



The standard bung, as stated, is llJxl inch in dimensions. There 

 are a great many bigger bungs made, however, some huge casks 

 requiring bungs that have a longitudinal diameter of four inches. 

 As a rule though, inch lumber is the thickness usually bought, while 

 two, three and four inch stock is purchased in smaller quantities for 

 the purpose of taking care of special orders for the more important 

 and heavyweight members of the Bung domicile. 



It is a little puzzling to figure just how many bungs are produced. 

 If one were to base an estimate upon the requirements of new bar- 

 rels alone, the figures would not be impressive. There were 355,000,- 

 000 tight barrel staves made in 1910, and assuming that the average 

 requirements per barrel involved 20 staves, this meant that not quite 

 18,000,000 barrels were made. In the same year 26,000,000 sets of 

 heading were manufactured, indicating that the barrel production 

 was somewhere between the two figures just noted. 



These figures cover new barrels only, while millions of old barrels 

 are constantly requiring reinforcements in the way of additional 

 bung supplies. The beer trade alone must be an enormous consumer 

 of bungs, while the various classes of trade which use and re-use their 

 packages are proportionately larger consumers than those which use 

 a barrel but once, as in the whisky distilling business. In the re- 

 handling and rectifying of whisky, of course, the barrel may see 

 additional service, so that in this trade alone there are a lot more 

 bungs needed than the known ])roduction of whisky packages would 

 suggest. 



With this in mind the estimated production of a large bung 

 factory in an Ohio valley city is easier to understand. It is said 

 to consume close to 10,000,000 feet of lumber a year, most of it 

 poplar and oak. Figuring on the basis of the standard bung dimen- 

 sions, there would be a production of thirty bungs per foot, allowing 

 for waste. On this basis the production would amount to 360,000,000 

 bungs a year — a truly amazing total, which makes the modest bung 

 a commercial factor of more than ordinary importance. These figures 

 may be out of line somewhat, but inasmuch as they are based on the 

 operations of but one plant, they show pretty plainly that the bung 

 business, taken as a whole, and considering that it is based on the 

 requirements of so insignificant a thing as a barrel-hole, is some 

 business. 



Milton, the blind poet, wrnte something in his later years which 

 pointed the thought that inactivity does not necessarily mean idle- 

 ness. He realized that the fallow mind may conceive and create 

 some great production which would have been impossible had the 

 ordinary affairs of life engrossed it. He felt, therefore, that he 

 might truly say of himself, 



"They also serve who only stand and wait." 



The lumber poet may disdain composing a sonnet addressed to 

 the bung; yet it is deserving of some such treatment, and of having 

 its virtues handed down to posterity in enduring fashion. While 

 the bung plays a minor and inconspicuous part, unaggressive, yet 

 steadfast and efiicient, it bears out the truth of the Miltonic declara- 



