The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1885-03-13
eRisTLEs.
| The Source Of the Large Majority Of the
Bristlos Of Commerce.

The Source Of the Large Majority Of the
Bristles Of Commerce.
The great hog market of the West
ern States furnishes sufficient supply
of bristles for the brush makers of
America, though until few years ago
the trade was claimed to be peculiar to
England, though English hogs did not
supply the material, as the English
swine do not grow bristles of the
proper quality, or which can be econ
omically or profitably used. The
source of the large majority of the
bristles of commerce is the vast forests
of Northern Russia; those OF the Ukar-
inc being superior to all others. In
those interminablc Russian forests there
are thousands of miles of land covered
with pine, oak, larches, beech, rowan
and other conal, most acorn and berry
bearing trees; the fruits of this form a
delicious diet for the hogs, which in a
semi-wifd state, more or less under the
care of swine-herds, swarm in prodigious
numbers. All these hogs, however, do
not surrender these bristles to the bristle
merchant, for those under culture for
the bristle crop are the privileged race
who pasture near the great tallow fac
tories of Russia. Where removed too
far from the habitations of men to be
consumed for human food, they are
boiled down for the sake of their fat.
On the refuse of the tallow house are
the hogs fed at certain seasons, and on
such food grow into a prime condition
after few months feeding. In the
summer, when the animals are well fat
tened, and after time of unlimited
feeding. the bristle harvest is reaped
and gathered in a way apparently
cruel, but which is not so much so as
it appears at first sight. When the
hogs are in proper condition they are
driven into an enclosure where they
are crowded together as thick, or even
thicker than they can stand, where,
by dint of kicking. running, struggling
and scrambling they get heated, in
which feverish condition they are
seized by the bristle-pluckers who then,
have but little difficulty in pulling the
bristles out by the roots, which ac-
complished, piggy has his liberty to
scamper off again to his pasture, and
make ready to grow fresh crop. That
this is really the way that the bristle
crop is reaped, any one who has a
chance of inspecting consignments OF
the articles undressed, may satisfy him.
self. He will see that the stiff h IRIS
have been forcibly dragged out by the
roots, and in the case of the Siberian
bristlcs. that along with the roots OF
the stiff hair there has been torn away
no inconsiderable amount of the softer
wool which by a kind provision OF
Nature underlies the bristles of the Sc
we're north.
How many tons of bristles per year
Russia turns out, we have no means OF
knowing, but st. Petersburg alone
supplies about fifteen hundred tons, OF
which England and America get the
largest share. In Prussia every peas.
ant knows the value of every hair OF
the swine, and each one boards the pro.
ceeds of his pigs until the collector
comes around to purchase. One
would think that bristles were not q
war supply, but at the time of the
Crimean war, bristles in Russia rose in
value to most fabulous price.--M. Y
Justice.