BUSH-BOSS AND BUTTERBOX.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 April 1916, Page 6

BUSH-BOSS AND BUTTERBOX.

TIIEIIt IXTERDEPEXDEXCE EXPLAINED. (By "Wayfarer"). Two million feet if white pine timber arc felled each year from the great inland bush of the Main Trunk- line, milled, dressed and converted into but-' tor-boxes and cheese crates by the Egmont Box Company. This venture is surely the quintessence of co-operation. Here we have a combination of co-oper-ative dairy companies pooling .jome litJ tie portion of their money in order to ensure the economical production of these cases to facilitate—aye, to make possible—the export of their own primary products, which represent one oi, New Zealand's principal sources of revenue. Tt was a bold conception, but the success of the plan is its own justi-' fication. A ri'cent visitor to the Main Trunk line from Hie butter province renewed acquaintance at Ohotu, near Taihape, with Mr. Ilohevt Earr. the manager of the lio>: Company. He was all courtesy,, and showed the visitor all that was to be seen. Time did not permit of a trip into the fastnesses from which some of the nation's best manhood is hewing down the white pine forest, but a message came from them in the shape of a log train drawn by a steam locomotive. The "bush bos?''' is ? man oF great importance to the dairy industry. It is his business to roe 1 that the sawmill is kept supplied with logs, and this mill, with its soriei o{ saw benches and its gang of some of the finest sawyers in the country, has a capacious maw for white pine logs. "And never yet has he failed us," said Mr. Barr, referring to the "bush boss." Tae dimensions of this business are an eye-opener. One would need a camera in order to convey, an impression of the great stacks of timber, row upon row, seasoning in the yards, but some, indication may be given in' the statement that there are some 130 men employed. This means that at Ohotu. where the swamill stands, there is quite a township, and all the mixed trains stop there. There are cottages for family men, and "quarters" for those still worrying along in a state of alleged single-blessedness: but many of t'he hands reside at Taihape, travelling to and fro. There is a '•boardinghou.se,'' where the lonely ones are fed. and many other evidences of the fact that these workers away from the big centres of population have their compensations. They are all well-paid men, the management realising that whore the best wages are, there will the best men be. The cottages are very comfortable—particularly the new ones.recently built 01 now under construction-~and each is connected with the company'; water service. And for these eosv little cots, with an eighth of an acre of ground to each, the lucky worker |)a,V". N in rent only five or six shillings a week! Shades of the Wellington suburbs!

A comparatively, few minutes elapse from the time when a huge log is hauled from the skids to the breaking-down bench, until we ?e 0 tiie trolleys running off with the sawn timber, iii inch and 'half-inch thicknesses, and up to 12 inches wide. This is the work, of course, of a whole series of circular saws, which bum and buzz and shriek 1 as they £O. Driven by a 40-h.p. Tsngye engine the saws send out showers "of sawdust, foi from a -J-in. to j-in. of timber is .brown out by the .saws at every cut—and tV sawdust is convered along a chute into into the open country behind the mill, where the huge pile of sawdust is continually smouldering away. One couldn't help being struck with an idea that this was a prodigal waste. This sawdust might be eonverted into paper pulp, so that the readers of the Daily News all over the territory for which these thousands and thousands of buttct and cheese cases are being manufactured, need no longer dread the day when the newsy "News" will be issued on a smaller sheet. Or the huge quantities ot potash which result from the burning would be Welcomed by many a farmer wjio is now compelled to "pay through the nose" for potash fertilisers. Meanwhile we are getting back to the mill, passing en route the hot and cold showcr"-bath erected for the men, and we find the engineering workshop. There 11 a very competent mechanic here. A huge 13ft lathe enable turning fo' .«■ done, and practi.-Hiv all this iron work, even to the making of the .neclmnicV. tools, is carried out on the premises, for the simple reason that if it .vcre necessary to wait for a easting, or rod to arrive from one of the town's the mil! might be rendered idle for'hours, even days. Through the ciigfno ; room. where the steel and brass parts .night easily. replace the driver's shaving mirror, n-e cross the huge building, edging by the saw-benches, uriti] we come, to the planing machines and the printing press. Xo need to worry about paper shortage here, for the printer gets bis impression on timber—tlie heads of the boxes [ind crates. And here we find the seasoned pine, dressed and , undressed, in I lengths or in staves, all ready for forwarding by rail to (he various centres. The carrying of the huge quantities of limber and crates must mean a nice little cliequn for iUr. Herries' department. Not being a sawmillcr, the writer can't go into details sufficiently lo explain bow the work of reducing Ihe logs to the required sizes of timlier is one continuous operation; bow ihe cunning of the expert mind has made it possible to handle these huge slabs and flitches and planks with evidently the minimum of effort; but one carries away with him from this huge building a confused memory of liuzzing froju.the planer, the hum of the saws, the rapidly running driving belts, skids and rollers in all directions, and the shriek of the New Zealand Railway Department's engine which is just pulling into the station the train on which the visitoi is to depart, after spending a very pleasant couple of hours 'tween trains under the guidance of a' most capable and courteous cicerone.