THE USES OF WOOD 



737 



PACKING FOR THE TRADE 



And now the toy is complete. Somewhere in every toy factory is a room where the finished articles are 

 Drought together preparatory to sending them out to the final buyers, and the maker of wooden boxes 

 and crates is here a man of importance, for he makes the shipping possible. 



others have, which are bright green, yellow, blue, or red, 

 which are colors not given by nature to any four-legged 

 creature. 



All toys are intended to furnish amusement, which is 

 their primary purpose, but those 

 heretofore described are based 

 on resemblance to real objects 

 which are possessed or employed 

 by grown people, and to that ex- 

 tent the toys are educational or 

 imitative. There are toys, how- 

 ever, which are intended to fur- 

 nish fun and recreation, without 

 regard to labors, trades, ma- 

 chines, or occupations of grown 

 people. Some of these, it is true, 

 are copied from recreations 

 which parents find enjoyable ; 

 but the basic idea is amusement. 

 Many sorts of games are in this 

 class, and there are few harmless 

 amusements indulged in by 

 adults which are not remodeled 

 to suit children. Among such 

 toys are scenic railways, tobog- 

 gans, tennis, croquet, ninepins, 

 bowling, circus fixtures, dominos, 

 checkers, chess, quoits, leap frog, 

 and many more. 



Sleds seem more properly to 

 belong here than in the class with 

 wagons, because a child's sled is 

 strictly a thing to give amuse- 

 ment. Bows and arrows come 



under this caption also, and tar- 

 get artillery, all of which the toy 

 manufacturer supplies. Rocking 

 horses with all their modifica- 

 tions, including rocking goats, 

 bears, and camels, and dozens of 

 others, fall in the same clas's. 

 Toy pool tables are almost a class 

 by themselves, because their 

 range in cost and size is so wide 

 that it is difficult to draw the 

 line between the toy and the real 

 article. They belong t.i the most 

 expensive class of toys, and they 

 are sold in immense quantities. 



Many of the toys sold in this 

 country are made in foreign 

 lands. Before the war Germany 

 made a large part of the wooden 

 toy mechanisms, such as jointed 

 animals and building blocks for 

 toy houses and other edifices. 

 Other classes are manufactured 

 in this country, among these be- 

 ing sleds, wagons, and tools. Handmade toys are com- 

 paratively rare, except that a good deal of the finish is 

 done by hand, and all of the assembling of parts after 

 they have been shaped or finished by machines. So 



READY FOR SHIPPING 



Not a shaving of wood or a scrap of paper is in sight to indicate that the packing of these toys has 

 been finished and that these neat boxes each carries an object dear to the heart of some child. Let the 

 imagination follow these boxes to their journeys' end. 



