The Mt. Sterling advocate. (Mt. Sterling, Ky.) 1890-current, 1903-11-25
TIE TEAsEL.
Peculiar Industry Once Speciality
in Skaneateles, N. Y.

OhdlitdttiCS, lCilidt hCN ults L.
ThurIow of that New York town
of strange name, according to the
Sun, sit raises teasles, which for
many years could not be success
fully produced in any other section
OF this broad land of all sorts Of
products"
Somebody wanted to know what
teasel was.
at is a plant" continued Mr..
Thurlow, whose burr is used to
produce a pile on cloth, and for
certain kinds of fabrics nothing
has yet been found to take it's
place. Forty years or more ago
the teasel was in great demand,
and as they could not be raised
anywhere except in small area
about Skaneateles, the industry
was very considerable within a
radius of ten miles OK ny town.
Teasel raising hogan az long -.
as eighty years and at one time ii
represented a business OF half
million dollars a year and oyer500
people were engaged in ii. To
day not more than a hundred are
in il, and the amount has sini.
larry decreased. This ID owing
rather to the production Of
smoother cloth than the adoption
Of a substitute fer the teasel. be-
cause, as said, they cannot get
substituta for it. steel has bee.
tried but the finest points they can
make are rough and jagged com
pared with the hne-hooked points
which nature pats en- the tsassl
burr, and which are necessary in
producing the proper nap en- the
cloth.
The tsssel 10 sewn In the spring
as soon as the ground 10 ready,
and the plant 10 left to grew till
the frost kills il down. The rect
remains, and the fcllowing ssassn
the plant grows frsm this and
bears the burrs, which are cut In
August, basketed and waeoned 10
sheds, whore they are housed and
trimmed ready for the market. An
acre Of ground will produce from
150, 900 to 200, 900 tsasels, running
ten pounds to the thousand and
worth now from 75 cents to 81
Thousand, although ] have seen
them worth as much as IS thou
sand. remember buying 3,000,-
600 tessels at so cents a thousand
from man who had held them for
81 years, and had at one time re-
fused Sl.51 a Thousand for them.
They require three or four weeks
to dry; then they are trimmed,
the stems cut to shont .ix inches,
and then are packed in boxes, 40.
900 to the box. The burrs vary in
length from an inch to six inches,
and they are designated oy sizes
as Buttons Mediums and
Kings those Of from an inch to
an inch and half being choice. A
great many are shipped abroad,
and several years ago sent lot
to Moscow.
Some people say the bull
thistle and the teasel are the
same, hut il they -ill examine the
two they will find that the prongs
of the wild teasel are straight,
while those OF the real thing are
hooked, which is all the difference
in the world for the work they
have to do. In the woollen mills
a teasel will last about n hours,
and some of the big mills In New
England have used as high as /, ;.
100000 q day, but they don't use
them that way now. Very com.
Portable fortunes were once made
in teasel raising, too, but that
time Is past also. Most of the
product is used now in the making
Of blankets and coarse cloths.
Ekaneateles is out of it, to a large
extent, as Oregon has come into
the field with even a better teasel
than we can produce, and we are
turning out ploughshares to other
uses. Any visitor TO our town
may see teasel farms and the
teasel clippers at their benches
shipping away with their scissors,
but the business is no longer what
1t once was, and it isn't improv-
ing"