A tip on shingle care

To the real estate editor: In regard to a request by J. H. Colver of Gravette, Ark., concerning a roofing compound, I cut the following letter out of a copy of the Monitor some time ago:

"My father before me and I have had to do with wood-shingle roofs for more than 100 years now. These roofs were on dwellings in the Midwest and California.

"If a new first-quality, cedar-shingle roof is left without care, it will gradually curl and split in from 10 to 20 years (or less). At this time it will begin to leak and will no longer be serviceable.

"We have sprayed (or painted) many shingle roofs with raw linseed oil to which three pounds of graphite had been added for each five gallons of oil. The coating soaks into the shingles and flattens them out in an almost miraculous fashion.

"The shingles are flexible and it stops the splitting which occurs in time otherwise.

"If the coating with linseed oil and graphite is repeated every 10 to 15 years, a properly laid cedar-shingle roof will remain smooth and serviceable indefinitely."

The letter was signed by Arden D. Zimmerman of San Jose, Calif.

In the 1940s a retired banker with rentals told me, in substance, the same thing. Fern Ahnberg Ventura, Calif.