AN ART OR A SCIENCE?

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 131, 30 November 1933, Page 7

AN ART OR A SCIENCE?

"Tho manufacture of leather has long boon regarded as an art rather than a science," remarks the annual report of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Eesearch when dealing with leather and pelts. "But," the report goes on to say, "as more information, has been obtained about the components of leather—i.e., about the materials which constitute hides and about those which serve for tanning purposes —the art has rapidly acquired a scientific basis. Eule-of-thumb methods, which originally controlled the different processes, are gradually being replaced by' definite scientific methods of control. Under modern . conditions of manufacture, progress in the leather

industry is intimately connected with! scientific methods of control. In the past definite control was possibly not so necessary because time, the healer of- many wounds, was allowed to mask or obliterate the faults which aroso from a lack of knowledge of factory technique. Those firms which are not only consolidating their position, but extending their activities, are those firms which not only realise the possibilities of science, but the advantage of them. The provision of scientific information on a number of. details to the tanners has enabled the industry: to keep abreast of modern developments and to avoid mistakes in practice which would cause losses or reduc* tion in the quality of the output. In consequence, New Zealand' manufactured leather is finding uses and1 it being employed ia ways in which' hith« erto it was not."