Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1886-09-25
suMAon aArAeRlNo IL VIRGINIA.
A Profitable Industry for Hardy Mount
aineers-crops aud Prices.


eineers-crops aud Prices.
wildwood Va) Cor. Chicago Journal
Sumach gathering has grown into an
industry of considerable magnitude in
the Virginia mountains of late years.
The bush is most abundant on the
rocky and uncultivated mountain side,
where no crop of grain could be grown.
Providence, it would seem, has es-
pecially designed that the mountaireer
should not be forgotten in the universal
economy of nature, and that he should
find subsistence ready at his cabin door.
The season for picking the leaf lasts
about three months in the year, begin.
ming in the latter part Of June. The
first frost renders the leaves unfit for
use h#.N
The product is hauled sometimes as
far as nifty miles, often over rough and
stony roads, in the ancient vehicles of
the mountaineers, to some mill or con-
venient shipping point. For the dry
and cured leaf they receive 81 hun
dred weight. AT this rate, although it
is smaller, the pickers allege than the
mill men could with justice give, the
gathering Of this wild leaf is much more
profitable than raising grain in the rich
valleys, where drought atflict the farm
ers. The wife and children of the mount
aineer assist him In gathering the leaves,
and u little girl of 10 becomes as dexter
GUS in stripping the bushes as grown
man of 20. Each can earn SO a day.
Expert gatherers have been known to
strip of leaves, which when cured have
weighed 500 pounds. One man living az
the top of the Blue Ridge, near
Manassas Gap, has picked this season
twenty tons and realized $500. 1t is
impossible to estimate the amount of
comfort given these poor people by this
source of revenue. Their fathers, in
ignorance of the wealth at their doors,
lived precarious existence, chiefly by
hunting and fishing, and partly by rails
ing on the thin soil little patches of
buckwheat
Most of the sumach gathered in
Virginia finds market in the morocco
factories of Wilmington, Del. It is used
to retain the rich coloring of the leather
impaired by the tanning properties of
the black oak bark. The only rival of the
Virginia sumach is that imported from
Sicily. The American article is richer
in fannie acid than the Sicilian, but the
imported leaf commands the highest
price for the reason that, as yet, the
Virginia mountaineers have not learned
the Importance of keeping theirleaves as
free from sand and grit as do the care
full Italians The leather dealer says
that the least speck of dirt or grit makes
flaw in the leather. The Italian leai
if used by the print cloths factories oil
New England. Print cloths soaked in a
solution of sumach retain their dyes
through all conditions of exposure te
weather.
The bush in the Virginia mountains
is known as the 'staghorn sumach." II
grows in great luxuriance until the
leaves have been stripped off for severa
seasons, when the bush will die if LEI
alone. In this emergency the mount
aineer bitches his horse to q long
narrow pointed shovel pillow called I
"bull-tongue," and plows about thu
roots, breaking and tearing them apart
From the torn roots fresh bushes sprins
up, and the next season q crop o
leaves thicker and darker than eve
amply rewards his homely toll No.