Arizona daily citizen., 1901-05-03
MAINE SPRUCE GUM.
Getting Dear on Account of Crow
ing Scarcity. "a
Increase in Number Of Pulp Mills Has
Had the Effect of Reducing
~ &he suDDly-RAnge
of Pricea.

The woods of Maine yield more than
one-hah of the five tons of genuine
spruce chewing gum consumed in this
country every year. Though the city
factories turn out large quantities of
artificial gum, made from bitumen,
pitch and paraffine and favored with
many beguiling essences, and sell their
products so eheaply that the poorest
citizen can afford to buy all the gum
he wants to chew, the clean, amber
tinted life-blood of the black spruce
tree is getting to be an expensive lux
ury, says the New York Sun.
Before the pulp mills came to Maine
crystal pure gum was sold by the job
bers for from 40 to 60 cents a pound.
Most of it was selected from newly
chopped trees by the lumbermen. The
advent of the pulp mills and the rapid
transportation of the cut timber by
rail from the stump to the factory
brought about a change of method.
Old growth spruce timber, from which
the best quality of gum is obtained, is
now so rare that an active lumberman
will not secure more than a pound of
gum in a winter.
The demand continuing constant,
prices doubled in few years, giving
birth to new industry. which gives
profitable employment to more than
200 men for month in every year. It
has taken about 20 years to complete
the evolution of gum picking from q
crude art to a science.
The men who engage in the busi-
ness have regular routes, which they
travel for year after year. The terri
tory Is leased from the land owners.
Before coming down from tree the
hunter makes deep horizontal gashes
on the sunny side Of the trunk, form
ing the wounds from which pitch will
exude during the summer and later
harden into gum for the next harvest.
Little gum OF last seasons ripening
has come to market, and the rates
charged are $50 to Sc a pound. In
April, when the pickers come in with
their packs, the price will fall to $f25.
below which figure no gum will be
bought this year. 4 exc
1t is asserted that the habit of gum
chewing gives one clear brain, and
that the chewer can think quickly and
act wisely in conducting the affairs of
life. More than two-thirds of the gum
gathered In Maine is sold In Boston,
and most of this is retailed to local
customers, fact which may account
for the high intellectual condition of
Boston.
Persons who visit the backwoois
towns of Maine hear many stories
about enterprising citizens who have
gained sudden wealth by cornering
the gum supply. In 1885 Mr.. Brown,
a Boston druggist. went TO Bangor to
purchase lumber for q group OF cot
tages he was about to put In near Cot
tage City. He sold spruce gum In his
store. buying it from the jobbers at an
average rate of 81 pound. Finding
that he could buy Ii in Bangor for SO
cents pound. he purchased all he
could get, visiting the camps in order
to secure as much aspossible.
He bought nearly two tons, which he
packed In boxes and stored away to
swait the opening Of the river no that
it could be taken down TO Boston by
boat. The ice was late in going out OF
the Penobscot that year, and before
the druggist received his gum the price
had gone up to % pound. He made
a profit Of more than $1,000 on an in
vestment of less than % 900.