Before leaving the boot trade I might refer to another recent development concerning a certain waste which is of decided interest. Patent cuttings presented quite a different proposal from the odds and ends of ordinary leather. The glossy finish was held to be a drawback, because obviously it would have to be removed before the material could be submitted to any of the purposes described. It was anticipated that such preliminary treatment might prove too expensive to render the recovery worth while. But a simple and cheap process for securing the patent in the form of a fine dust--“curriers’ powder”--was found. This left the leather free for further exploitation. Then the question of turning the reclaimed dust to account arose. Inquiries were made, but there appeared to be no opening for it. It looked as if this curriers’ powder would have to be set on the shelf in company with the recovered grease against a day of brilliant discovery upon the part of the indefatigable chemist. But a firm specializing in a peculiar phase of activity came along. It was experiencing distinct difficulty in finishing off the work with which it is identified with the requisite degree of satisfaction. Suddenly it had occurred to the technical staff that this fine dust might possibly extricate them from the dilemma with which the firm was confronted. The dust was submitted to trial. The tests are not yet conclusive, but the results so far recorded have fully justified the utilization of this material; certainly the firm in question is disposed to concede its employment as the solution to their difficulty. Should these expectations be fully realized there is every indication that the demand for curriers’ powder will become exceedingly heavy, and from a quarter which will arouse widespread surprise. The consumption in this realm will eclipse that ever likely to be recorded in connection with footwear. While industrial ethics preclude the mention of the precise application in question, it may be added that it is about as closely allied or has as much in common with boots as the use of cheese in the production of steel. The one overwhelming obstacle to the commercial utilization of waste is organized and cheap segregation and collection. This difficulty is aggravated when the refuse in question happens to be in a combined form, that is to say, when two or three--perhaps more--widely divergent substances are associated to produce the one article. Possibly only one of the constituents possesses a known market, or it may so happen that each of the component substances has a distinct market but only in its individual form.