Dissolving nitrocellulose in ether and alcohol we get the collodion
varnish that we are all familiar with since we have used it on our cut
fingers. Spread it on cloth instead of your skin and it makes a very
good leather substitute. As we all know to our cost the number of
animals to be skinned has not increased so rapidly in recent years as
the number of feet to be shod. After having gone barefoot for a million
years or so the majority of mankind have decided to wear shoes and this
change in fashion comes at a time, roughly speaking, when pasture land
is getting scarce. Also there are books to be bound and other new things
to be done for which leather is needed. The war has intensified the
stringency; so has feminine fashion. The conventions require that the
shoe-tops extend nearly to skirt-bottom and this means that an inch or
so must be added to the shoe-top every year. Consequent to this rise in
leather we have to pay as much for one shoe as we used to pay for a
pair.

Here, then, is a chance for Necessity to exercise her maternal function.
And she has responded nobly. A progeny of new substances have been
brought forth and, what is most encouraging to see, they are no longer
trying to worm their way into favor as surreptitious surrogates under
the names of "leatheret," "leatherine," "leatheroid" and
"leather-this-or-that" but come out boldly under names of their own
coinage and declare themselves not an imitation, not even a substitute,
but "better than leather." This policy has had the curious result of
compelling the cowhide men to take full pages in the magazines to call
attention to the forgotten virtues of good old-fashioned sole-leather!
There are now upon the market synthetic shoes that a vegetarian could
wear with a clear conscience. The soles are made of some rubber
composition; the uppers of cellulose fabric (canvas) coated with a
cellulose solution such as I have described.