Wood-Burners

News that motor trucks can now be made to run on kindling wood instead of gasoline reached Joseph Stalin some time ago, fired the Dictator's keen brain. The system was pioneered in Italy and last year Benito Mussolini ordered all busses in the Kingdom converted to burn wood.

The kindling is transformed into gas in an ungainly looking "generator" as the bus lumbers along. This gas drives a conventional gasoline engine on which the liquid carburetor has been replaced by a gas carburetor. Last week Dictator Stalin approved orders to build in Russia within two years 56,000 wood-burning motor trucks.

This striking decision was announced at Moscow with dramatic display. The official press declared that on July 1 twelve wood-burners driven by Soviet crews exclusively female started out on a triumphal 7,000-mile test run which included a run through the Ural Mountains and was completed last week "with no accidents and no serious breakdowns." Foreign correspondents turned out to count the trucks as they were driven by their pretty crews through cheering crowds. They counted seven wood-burners which actually crossed the finish line out of the original twelve.

Why oil-rich Russia-- should go in for wood-burning motor trucks Moscow observers easily explained. The mighty Soviet oil fields do not of course spout gasoline; Russian cracking plants have given trouble; the gasoline has to be shipped thousands of miles; but almost everywhere in Russia wood is abundant.

*From which oil-poor Italy still buys the raw materials to make aviation gasoline which powers planes to shoot at Russian pilots in Spain.

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