The Emporia weekly news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1881-1889, 1885-11-12
ABOUT SUNAC

Everyone in Kansas has noticed with
what great perseverance the red-headed
nuisance called sumac, maintains its
grip when once it comes to the concIu-
sion to make settlement along a fence
or In some awkward angle of farm. The
cockle-bur. Spanish bur, "tickle-grass
and "stick-me-tight," are all over
Swallowed and crowded out
by sumac. Given an even chance
it will crowd down and out any vegeta-
BILE creation in Kansas, and not take
long to do 1t either. The more you try
to eradicate 1t by blowing, the more it
grows, three shoots coming up where be-
fore only one grew. Its root IS like
that of blackberry, cut it through q
dozen times, and you have q dozen
shoots, But our Kansas sumach will
beat even a blackberry, and will
soon wave It's blood-red hands
triumphantly over Its prickly enemy.
Every farmer has probably asked him.
self, can We utilize this plantP The
question would seem to be answered in
the following letter, which we find in
the New York Tribune.
WILDWOOD, Va, Nov. 5.-Sumach gath
ering has grown into an industry of con
siderable magnitude in the Virginia
mountains of late years. The bush is
most abundant on the rocky and uncul-
tivated mountainsIde where no crop of
grain could be grown. Providence,
It would seem, has especially
eer should not be forgotten in the uni.
versal economy of nature and that he
should find substance ready at his
cabin door. The season for picking the
leaf Is now closing. It lasts about
three months IN tho year; beginning
in the latter part of June. The fret froet
renders the leaves unfit for use. Ths
product is hauled sometimes as far "a
fifty miles, often over rough and stonv
roads, in the ancient vehicles OF the
mountaineers, to some mill or conven-
lent shipping point. For the dry and
cured leaf they receive 81 hundred
weight. At this rate, although it is
smaller, the pickers a!lege, than the mill
men could with justice give, the gather
ing OF this wild leaf is much more profit.
able than raising gram IN the rich val
leys, where drouths af1 lets the farmers
ee: assist him in gathering the leaves.
and little girl of ten becomes as dex.
ferrous in stripping the leaves as q grown
man of twenty-five. Each can earn IS
. day. Expert gatherers have been known
TO strip off leaves which when cured have
weighed 500 pounds One man living
at the top of the Blue Bidge, near Man
assRs Gap, has picked this season twen-
tY tons and realized 800. 1t Is Impos-
sible to estimate the amount of comfort
given these poor people by this source
of revenue. Their fathers in iguor.
ance of the wealth at their doors lived a
pTecarious existence, chiefly by hunting
md fishing, and partly by raising on the
thin soil little patches of buckwheat,
Most of the sumach gathered In VIr-
ginia finds market In the morocco fac
tories of Wilmington, Delaware, Il Is
used to retain the rich coioring of the
leather impaired by the tanning proper.
ties of the black oak bark The ONLY
rival Of the Virginia sumach is that i'm
ported from Sicily. The American ar =
ticle is richer in tannic acid than the ST.
Gillian, but the imported leaf commands
the highest price for the reason that, as
yet, the ViTgi mia mountaineers have not
learned the importance of keeping their
leaves as free from sand and grit as do
the careful Italians. TIE leather dealer
says that the least speck of dirt or grit
makes flaws in the leather. The italian
leaf is used by the print cloth factories
of New England. Print cloths soaked in
. solution of sumach retain their dyes
through all conditions OF exposure to
weather.
The bush in the Virginia mountains
Is known as the "siaghorn eumach." 1t
grows in great luxurlance until when
the leaves have been stripped of for seV.
eral seasons, when the bush will die If
let alone. In this emergency the noun
tAineer bitches his horse To a long, mar
row ploughs about the roots, breaking
and tearing them apart From the torn
roots fresh bushes spying up and the
next season crop OF leaves thicker and
darker than ever amply rewards his
homely, toll.