96 BULLETIN 102, VOL. 1, UNITED STATES NATIOISTAL MUSEUM. 



disturbing external factors. The production of incidental products 

 (waste products and by-products), however, is under no such con- 

 trol, but is deterniined by the output of main products. Hence the 

 supply of incidental products exceeds the demand. Industry itself 

 tends to bring these incidental products into use, but is limited by 

 certain restrictive circumstances. 



The individual industrial activity is often too small or poorly 

 organized to make by-product recoveries, which usually gain their 

 value from a cumulative effect only possible under large-scale opera- 

 tions. If the activity is strong and highly organized it tends to 

 build up by-products, in so far as the by-products are end-products 

 or near end-products; that is, materials that may be adapted by 

 slight treatment to an immediate consumptive demand. Such activi- 

 ties may even add small pendant industries in order to make the 

 adaptation. Such pendant industries, however, are usually confined 

 to operations that may be largely fed by the output of the parent 

 industry. 



If, however, the potential by-products are of the intermediate 

 order, requiring outside industries to carry them forward into use, 

 and these outside industries are lacking, inadequate, or too foreign 

 in scope to be built up by the parent activity, the matter of by- 

 product development gets beyond the reach of industrial stimulus. 

 Such is the case with the bulk of by-product possibilities. The 

 parent industry can do little or nothing; independent industries to 

 handle such materials are slow to develop, hampered by the un- 

 certainties of a supply fluctuating independently of the pressure of 

 their demand, and hesitating to build activities at the mercy o^ con- 

 ditions beyond their control.^ 



Apart from the virtual inability of an industry to create a favor- 

 able outlet for its potential by-products of the intermediate order, 

 there is a lack of definite stimulus to do so, growing out of the fact 

 that the loss involved in nondevelopment is not felt by the industry. 

 Within an industry, it is true, where the lack of by-product recovery 

 is due to the inferior practice on the part of an individual enter- 

 prise as contrasted with its rivals, the waste involved does mean 

 financial loss to the activity engaged in the inferior usage, and is 

 slowly remedied by the operation of continued competition. But 

 where the lack of by-product recovery is common throughout an 

 industry, there is no competitive spur toward improvement; and 

 as the waste involved in the lack of full-value recovery is a loss 

 not borne by the industry and not perceived by the public, who for 

 the main products pay a price untempered by by-product contribu- 



^ There are other factors retarding independent industrial developments utilizing by- 

 products, but these involve matters that need not be gone into here. 



