The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1900-05-10


Branches-It Pays well For Some.
TTHIS has been an off year for
gum in Maine. Ordinarily
1 the Maine supply of clear,
q pink, odorous and sweet
spruce gum has been in the tons, and
every ton of it is worth $4,000 at first
hands. This year the supply of
marketable gum will fall much below
the average. This sad fact is not
brought about by a dearth of gum so
much as lack of skillful harvesters.
Everybody is going into it," said
wholesale gum dealer in Bangor,
Me-, the chief gum market OF the
United States, "and the supply is not
so good this year in consequence.
They bring in all kinds of stuff, dirt
and pitchy and full of black spots, and,
of course, we can't buy it. We won't
get the good, clear gum this winter we
did last year on that account.
81 remember" went on the gum
dealer, as he leaned over the counter,
''when gum gatherers came in here
with from 400 to 500 pounds of gum
to the man to sell after winter in the
woods. Every pound of it was worth
dollar, and that is just what [ gave
for it, right through.
''rhis winter 1 haven't seen any of
the kind of gum we used to get; that
is, not in quality. Last year | bought
more than a ton Of gum. and sent it
out of the State. There is a good de-
mand for it, especially from the West,
where there are Maine people in large
numbers. 1 don't get very big prof
it out of it, for it retails at ten cents
an ounce, all done mp in neat paste
board box. Then, there is q shrink
age of ten per cent. on it, and the adj
ditional loss from it becoming broken.
After [ have sold it to mlddleman,
say at $1.25 a pound, aud he sells it
to the retailer, who can only get ten
cents an ounce for it, you will see there
is no great profit in it for any of us.
IT is HARD TO COLLECT.
GAS for the man who gathers il, >"
went on the gum dealer, che earns his
dollar a pound. wouldn't clean the
stuff for that money Every piece in
it has to be handled, and most of it
scraped with a knife to tako off the
rough outside. There is a good deal
of waste in the cleaning. The best
gum gatherers are those who know
how to get clean gum, the kind that
does not require II lot of cleaning"
Notwithstanding the difficulty in
getting together 100 pounds of gum,
the dealer recalled that he bought on
one occasion 998 pounds of gum from
two men, who had gathered it in a
winter. They were Swede farmers
from the vicinity of New Sweden, in
northern Aroostook. Work is dull on
the potato farms in winter, aud the
thrifty Swedes look around for q
chance to make a dollar. Many of
them go into the woods as lumber
men. Some trap, while others gather
gum. These two farmers netted 81
a pound for their gum.
Only men of great patience and
never -ceasing activity can gather near
ly 500 pounds Of gum in winter The
task is one calling for almost incredi-
BILE work. When one buys little box
OF the pure, amber blood of the spruce
he little thinks of the patience that
has been put into the work of gather
ing it.
The gum gatherer begins his work
in the fall as soon as the snow comes
and makes travelling on foot in the
forest easier than when the ground is
bare, and he keeps at his task, day
after day, in storm and shine, until
spring.
HOW 1T Is GATHERED.
Living in rough camp, lie walks
forth into the trackless woods every
morning at daylight, and keeps going
until dark. He wears snowshoes, on
which he skins the surface. of the
deep white carpet on the ground,
making his way from tree to tree. his
head up, scanning the brown trunks
for the little drops of CONCEALED sap
that is known as spruce gum.
An expert gum gatherer can see
gum on the trunk of tree where the
novice would see none. He also knows
Mt n glance whether ''teat" is worth
taking off or not, and that when it is
sometimes fifteen feet above his head.
As it is impossible to reach most of
the gum on forest spruces without
some implement, the gum gatherer
has a specially made gathering rod,
with which he brings down the golden
drops. This rcd is generally in three
sections, so that its length may be
regulated to the height to be reached.
On the end of the rod is a knife, and
beneath it is little pouch, such as is
used on fruit picker, into which the
piece OF gum drops after being de-
tached from the tree by the knife.
After getting all the gum on a tree,
and there is seldom more than an
ounce in the rough to be had from
even the best gum trees, the gum
| gatherer goes ON TO the next tree
yielding gum.
Not all spruces yield gum. Many
| of the trees have no gum on them at
all until the bark becomes broken OIL
there is some break around limb,
allowing the sap of the tree to exude
and harden. Trees that have been
trimmed of their lower branches are
the best for yielding gum. Sections
where lumbermen have "swamped'
roads, or have been logging, are,
therefore, better, as rule, for the