Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-03-17
SPRUCE GUM FROM MAINE
This Years Supply Not Up to the Average
in Quality.
1t Sells mt $4,000 q Ton, Fresh From
the wOOds-HOw the Gum
Gatherers Work.

From the Boston Globe.
This has been an off year for gum in
Maine.
Ordinarily the Maine supply of clear,
pink, odorous and sweet spruce gum has
been in the tons, and every ton of 1t Is
worth 81, 900 at first hands. This year the
supply of marketable gum will fall much
below the average. This sad fact is not
brought about by dearth of gum so
much as lack of skillful harvesters.
Everybody Is going into it," said n
wholesale gum dealer in Bangor, Me-. the
chief gum market of the United States,
land the supply Is not 50 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.
Il remember" went on the gum dealer.
as he leaned over the counter, when gum
gatherers came in here with from 400 to 800
winter in the woods. Every pound of 1t
was worth a dollar. and that is just what
1 gave for 1t. right through.
This winter I haven't seen any of the
kind of gum we used to get: that is, not
IN quality. Last year I bought more than
a ton of gum, and sent 1t out OF the state.
There is a good demand for 1t, especially
from the west, where there are Maine peo-
PIC IN ldTS6 NUMBERS. uOH get d NVky
big profit out of it, for It retails at 10
cents an ounce, all done up in q neat paste
board box. Then, there is a shrinkage Of
10 per cent on it, and additional loss from
a middleman. say at SIPS pound, and he
sells 1t to the retailer, who can only get
10 cents an ounce for it, you will see there
is no great profit in 1t for any of US.
"As for the man who gathers it, went
on the gum dealer. "he earns his dollar a
pound. 1 wouldn't clean the stuff for that
money. Every piece In it has to be han
died, and most of 1t Scraped with knife
to take 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 a lot of cleaning
Notwithstanding the difficulty in getting
together 100 pounds Of gum. the dealer re-
called that he bought on one occasion 99S
pounds of gum from two men. who had
gathered 1t in winter. They were Swede
in northern Aroostook. Work is dull on the
potato farms in winter, and the thrifty
Swedes look around for chance to make a
dollar. Many of them go into the woods
as lumbermen. Some trap, while others
gather gum. These two farmers Melted 81
a pound for their gum and divided the sum
equally.
Only men Of the greatest patience and
of never-ceasing activity can gather near
ly 500 pounds of gum in a winter. The task
is one calling for almost incredible work
When one buys a little box of the pure
amber blood of the spruce he little thinks
of the patience that has been put into
the work of gathering 1t.
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.
Living In a rough camp, he walks forth
Into the trackless woods every morning at
II 1irrt,t be all ia
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 a tree where the novice could
see none. He also knows at a glance
whether ''teat'' is worth taking off or not
and that when 1t is sometimes fifteen feet
above his head.
gum on forest spruces without some nipple
ment, the gum gatherer has specially
made gathering rod, with which he brings
down the golden drops. This rod Is gener-
may be regulated to the height to be
reached. On the end Of the rod is knife
and beneath it is q little pouch, such as is
used on a fruit picker into which the piece
of gum drops after being detached 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
break around limb, allowing the sap of
the tree to exude and harden Trees that
have been trimmed of their lower branches
are Ell the best for Yielding gum. Sections
or have been logging. are. therefore better,
as a. rule, for the gum gatherer than the
virgin forest. where the gum trees are
farther apart and the gum hangs higher
There is a vast territory In northern
Maine from which gum comes, a region
larger than the state Of Massachusetts,
covered by deep spruce forest broken only
by lakes and streams. Out of this region
in the spring come many men bearing their
packs of gum on their backs. Some have
devoted their whole time for the winter to
gathering gum. Others have combined
with this work trapping, fur-bearing ami
mails. A number of guides. who in the fish
ing and hunting season traverse the woods
with parties of sportsmen. devote their
winters to gathering gum.
The life Of the gum gatherer is necessari-
ly hard one, as Will be seen. 1t is also
terribly lonesome. All winter the man
with the gum pack fits like a shadow from
tree to tree, silently gathering gum, and
having no company other than the wild
things in the forest, except perhaps at
times when he goes out to some settlement
walking twenty or thirty or forty miles on
snowshoes, to get provisions, and per-
haps get his mail from the little woods
mans post Office. But he sticks to it, does
the gum man, and in the spring he ''skuffs''
down to Bangor. there to market his gum
and perhaps indulge In few Of the fading
joys of town.
Such is the story of gum, the kind of gum
that makes the Yankee feel like going back
home whenever he smells 1t or takes a
chew of it; the kind that puts to shame the
sweetened CONNECTIONS made by machinery
in fact, the real spruce gum, that is as
much a part of the resources of Maine as
Ice. or lumber. or granite. or pretty girls.
The English Khaki Tunic.
From Good Words.