I In Part II we described the various fibers from which rope is made and pointed out the importance of expert knowledge and foresight in the buying of these raw materials. Purchasing power and the resources for grading and using each bale of fiber with strict regard to its particular fitness for his products are also of special value to the rope manufacturer.
We have already shown that Manila fiber or hemp, as it is commonly called, is the principal and for most purposes the best cordage material. Including the numerous commercial grades and the brands of individual packers, the market designations or marks of Manila hemp run into the hundreds and cover a wide range in the four important qualities of strength, texture, length and color. A single mark may, furthermore, vary greatly in one quality or another from time to time, so that the market designation alone is not a safe sign of the fiber’s fitness for a certain purpose.
Because of these facts the only way a manufacturer can be sure of sufficient fiber of the character required to insure uniform quality in each of his products is by examining and re-grading, according to his own standards, the hemp delivered to him and by combining selections of different marks in the right proportions to give the desired results. To do this successfully requires a thorough knowledge of fibers, large stocks always available and special storage facilities.
The steadily increasing demand for our products and our large scale of production warrant our buying yearly more Manila hemp than any other single manufacturer—more than many combined. Our purchases are governed, furthermore, by the knowledge gained through more than ninety years’ experience with the fiber markets and rope-making. These facts explain why we are able to secure the choicest marks so consistently and in such quantity.
We have also erected warehouses capable of holding large quantities of fiber for months at a time so that we can store such as is not necessary for our immediate wants. This helps us to take full advantage of specially favorable offerings in the fiber markets. In addition, we maintain a system of fiber examination and classification by our own experts together with warehouse records that insure each bale being put to the particular use its quality fits it for.
The important question of quality is determined when the hemp first reaches us. The carloads of Manila from Boston, New York, Seattle and other ports are brought directly alongside our warehouses and after the hemp has all been transferred to the platforms every mark is carefully gone over. Bales are opened, the hanks laid out flat, the fiber minutely examined and each mark given our own grading. This examination is conducted purely from the manufacturing standpoint and is entirely in addition to the one made on the dock. The expert ability to judge fiber and the constant care required can be imagined from the fact that single shipments frequently contain as many as seventy-five marks.
The weighing and storing of the fiber follow next, and the latter is a task of considerable magnitude, for our warehouses contain a floor space of over 370,000 square feet and each mark must be so placed that it will be readily accessible as needed. When the bales are put on the scales and an entry made of the weight—always close to 275 pounds on Manila—a record is also set down for each bale which identifies it by mark, shipment and location in warehouse, according to the section, bay and hoist selected for it. The hemp is then built up into orderly piles with the aid of a portable compressed-air engine, each mark being placed by itself.
By means of this warehouse system and the separate record showing the proper use for every mark in each shipment, the qualities and quantities of fiber needed by any mill for the regular day’s work or for a particular job can be gotten out at a moment’s notice and with very small chance of error. As an additional safeguard, however, against accidental use of the wrong lot of fiber, we maintain a checking system which would reveal at once any mistake in delivery from warehouse to mill.
The careful methods we have just described are indicative of the watchfulness maintained with each of the many fibers we use, although in none of them is there as great range of quality as in Manila, nor is purchasing power so important a factor.
A recent and interesting development in connection with our Sisal importations is the direct steamship service now in effect between Yucatan and North Plymouth, and because of which cargoes of this fiber can now be brought directly alongside our own pier, unloaded by our own employees and trucked at once into our own warehouse.
Every user of rope naturally expects that under equal conditions he will receive the same service from one rope that he does from another of the same kind and size made by the same manufacturer. The Plymouth Cordage Company aims to have each of its products give that sort of service; first, by possessing the best materials, facilities and workmen obtainable; second, by utilizing each of these factors to the best advantage.
This policy, so well illustrated in our buying and selecting of fiber, finds its expression in every phase and department of our business, and herein lies one of the vital reasons why Plymouth Rope has always been so popular and is becoming increasingly so among discriminating rope buyers.
Speedy transfer of the fiber from warehouse to mill is made by an industrial railroad operated by compressed air, which carries the bales directly into the various opening rooms.