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Show I AGRICULTURE I INDUSTRY Sugar Cane By FLORENCE WEED (This is one of a series of articles showing show-ing how farm products are Ending an important im-portant market in industry.) Some of the attractive colorful rooms in modern homes are made with wall board of pressed sugar cane. Time was when no one knew what to do with sugar cane bagasse after the sugar was extracted. Tons were either destroyed or burned as fuel in the sugar mills. Then industrial in-dustrial chemists found a way to press the cane refuse into long fibers, to felt and weave it into long board sheets. Chemists have also found that a cheap molding compound can be made from bagasse. By grinding the cane to a powder, combining it with chemicals, the substance can be molded into flat panels or floor tiles. Backers believe that this low cost molding compound will enable the plastics industry to branch out into broader fields such as the manufacture man-ufacture of furniture, building materials mate-rials and parts for automobiles since it can be made for less than half the cost of the cheapest synthetic compound known. |