The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1900-04-06
SPRUCE GUM FROM MAINE.
The Years Supply Not Up to the
Average in Quality.
From the Boston Globe.

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 it is
worth $1,000 at first hands. This year the
supply of marketable gum will fall much
below the average. This sad fact is not
brought about by dearth of gum so
much as lack of skillful harVesterS.
Everybody is going into it, said a
wholesale gum dealer in Bangor, Me, the
chief gum market of the United States,
land 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
800 pounds of gum to the man to sell af-
ter winter in the woods. Every pound
of ID was worth dollar, and that is just
what 1 gave for it, right through.
This winter 1 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 it out of the state.
There is a good demand for it, especially
from the w est WH6I6 luSIc diC NldiAAC
people in large numbers. L don't get
very big profit out of it, for it retails at
10 cents an ounce, all done up in neat
pasteboard box. Then, there is a shrink
age of 10 per cent on it, and additional
loss from it's becoming broken. After
l have sold it to a middleman, say at
ST. % a pound and he sells it to the re-
taller, who can only get 10 cents an ounce
for it. you will see there is no great
profit in il for any of us.
LAS for the man who gathers it," went
on the gum dealer "he earns his dollar a
pound / wouldn't clean the stuff for that
money. Every piece has to be handled,
and most of 1t scraped with a knife to
take off the rough outside. There is
good deal of waste in the cleaning. The
best gum gatherers are those who know
how to 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 it in winter They We're Swede
farmers from che vicinity of New Sweden,
in Northern Aroostook. Work is dull on
the potato farms in winter, and the thrifty
Swedes look around for chance to make
dollar Many of them go into the woods
as lumbermen. Some trap, while others
gather gum. These two farmers netted 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 it.
The gum gatherer begins his work In
the fall, as soon as the snow comes, and
makes travelling on foot in the forest cas-
Ter 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
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 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 a "teaf' is worth taking
off or not, and that when it is sometimes
fifteen feet above his head.
AS ii is impossible to reach most of the
gum on forest spruces without some i'm
Dlement. the gum gatherer has specially
made gathering rod, with which he brings
down the golden drops. This rod is gen.
orally in three sections so that its length
may be regulated TO the hight to be reach
ed. On the end of the rod is knife, and
beneath ii is 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 tree. and there is seldom
more than an ounce in she rough to be
had from even the best gum trees, the
gum gatherer goes ON 10 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, or there
is some break around a 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
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 Messac husetts,
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