I have previously referred to the reclamation of the grease from the leather trimmings accruing from the manufacture of boots for the Services. The trimmings represent pieces of good sound leather, of all shapes and sizes, some of the fragments being of relatively large dimensions. A selection of this waste from two large Northampton factories was secured. It was carefully sorted. The larger pieces were found to be useful for providing patches of varying sizes, capable of profitable use by the trade for the repair of civilian footwear. The larger sections of soleing leather were similarly sorted, having been found adaptable to what is known as “packing-up” in resoleing operations. By the time this sorting had been completed only shreds and tatters of leather were left. These were degreased for the recovery of the dubbin-like fat already described, and to leave the leather quite clean, soft, and pliable. The fragments from the uppers were again examined, and found capable of further selection to serve as raw material for another industry which was being sorely harassed from the non-availability of the raw leather upon which it was normally dependent. This was the fabrication of the tiny, circular, serrated-edge leather discs or “tufts” used in the making of mattresses for bedding. This discovery proved to be extremely opportune. Leather had grown so scarce that the normal supplies for this range of duty had been summarily cut off. Yet mattresses cannot be made without these tufts, and the bedding trade had been striving diligently to discover the suitability of certain suggested substitutes, when along came the suggestion that degreased uppers waste from the boot factories might possibly satisfy all demands in this direction. The ability to exploit the residue in this manner provided the Lord Roberts’ Memorial Workshops with an additional field for activity, of which due advantage was taken. Then it was found that the soleing leather might be put to equally useful service. Many trades were reduced to a quandary from the inability to obtain leather supplies from which to make washers. This waste was found to fill the bill very neatly, because as with boots so with washers--there is nothing like leather. Certainly no substitute therefore has yet been found able to fulfil the required duty so efficiently as the hide from the cow, although there has been no lack of enterprise in this direction. The wisps and scraps of uppers and soles of leather remaining from this selection--mere shavings and shreds--are ground up and converted into fertilizer.