From the driers all corks are taken to the sorting rooms, where they are subjected to the last of the actual manufacturing processes, and, from many standpoints, the most interesting of all. Here, again, the importance of proper grading is paramount, and when one considers that almost five million corks pour into this department every working day, the magnitude of the task can be partly grasped. When the further fact is known that this enormous output is to be sorted into about twenty regular besides numerous special grades, one can still further appreciate what the problem involves. The work itself calls for such a peculiar combination of faculties that only one out of every five operatives who are given preliminary training in this department is found satisfactory; but so highly skilled do the regular workers become that the sorting of thirty-five thousand corks may be considered an average day’s labor. Experts exercise careful supervision and actually test each lot of corks as they come from the operatives in order that uniform standards may be maintained from day to day and month to month. [Illustration: Circle A Corks] When past the keen eye of the tester, the cork, after its long journey through the factory, passes either direct to the packing department or to the warehouses. This last point involves a problem which is often very puzzling and difficult of solution. Thousands of dollars’ worth of corks are placed in the warehouses every year to remain there indefinitely. An order for a quantity of corks of a certain size and quality also involves, of necessity, the manufacture of a great many corks of other grades. The reason for this is, of course, found in the fact that the raw material, no matter how carefully sorted at the outset, will not produce a finished product of uniform quality. Thus frequently it becomes necessary to work over a given lot of corks for which there is no demand into a smaller size for which orders are pouring in. [Illustration: Circle B Corks] Into the packing department streams a bewildering array of corks of every conceivable shape, grade, and size. The tapers appear in a dozen qualities, at the head of which stand the peerless “Circle A” and “Circle B,” prescription corks found in every first-class pharmacy in the land. The straights have been separated into various classes, running from the fine champagne corks down to the common soda water corks. Besides, there are keg corks, hand cut corks, mustard and jar corks of large diameter, shell corks, perforated through the center, and glued corks made up of several layers, all of which must be put up in packages of suitable size, ready to be delivered to the shipping department for transportation to the consumer. [Illustration: Tapered Corks, X Grade] [Illustration: Bobbers for Fishing Lines] [Illustration: Large Tapered Corks] [Illustration: Instrument and Fishing Rod Handles]