Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-04-26
PASSING OF PAMPAs PLUMEs.
No Longer a Demand for Decorative
Grass Once Very Popular.

From the Los Angeles Times
There is one industry In California that
is dying a natural death-the raising and
coloring of pampas grass for decorative
purposes.
With the uprooting of the pampas
patches will go one of the most picturesque
features of southern California landscape.
There is great beauty about an orange
grove in blossom or in fruit. The lighter
yellow of the lemon is not unattractive.
The solid green of field of lima beans
holds many pleased eye. But field of
pampas grass surpasses all of the others
In its majesty.
Imagine. if you please, forty or fifty acres
the average size of the pampas field
closely set with great cone-shaped mounds
of green rising ten, twelve. fourteen feet
from the ground. 1t is enough in itself to
call forth EXPLANATIONS of delight. When
from the top of the mound some 300 feath-
cry plumes of creamy white rise up grace
fully the picture is complete. Often the en-
tire field Is set in motion by an ocean
breeze and becomes even more beautiful,
When the plumes attain a certain ripe
ness they are plucked by hand an opera
ton requiring the greatest care. for every
one of the thousands of blades making up
the green mound is armed with saw-teoth
edges ready to cut deep and painful
pulled the plumes are spread out over a
dry field to cure In the sun. If not prop
erly cured the feathers fall off in the col
oring process field carpeted with dry
ing plumes is another sight which has been
peculiar to California and one well worth
seeing.
There have been a large number of pam.
pas ranches along the coast. but this win
ter will see the last of most of them. The
exceptionally long dry spell makes ii pos
sible for the ranchers to uproot the plants
without tearing deep holes in the soil, and
they taking advantage of *.
IF I'd "a had this patch twenty-five
years ago it would have made me a rich
man in a season." said the owner of the
largest pampas patch in the Carpenteria
Valley the other day. He stood in the
midst of the patch and urged his men to
greater efforts in pulling out the stubborn
growth. Just Think they sold at two bits
a piece theni The people that were grow
ing them couldn't begin to supply the de-
mand, either. Now it's different, so all
fired different that I've got 10000 of last
seasons crop put away in the barn, and
no takers at three-quarters of a cent
plume. Do you wonder that I'm haulin'
em out?
The decline of the pampaS plume market
is due to sudden freak of the public.
The industry began to assume Importance
about the time of the Philadelphia GEN.
tennial, when carload lots were shipped
east, dyed blue red, yellow, green and
what not and sold to admiring housewives
For years there was a steady sale to peo-
pie, who put them in glass cases and stood
them on parlor mantels or handicapped
center tables.
They became popular as a decoration for
theaters, halls and even churches. Thou
sands of them were used for this purpose
and some very artistic effects secured. Then
followed several costly fires, which were
laid entirely to the infiammable nature of
the pampas. A pavilion In Santa Barbara
burned a theater in Illinois and a church
farther east. That ended the sale of the
plumes for hall decoration.
The enterprising growers. shut out of one
market. found another in Europe. and there
was new season of great prosperity. One
by one the foreign countries sent word that
they wanted no more Feather grass" The
German market held out the longest but
even that failed last year and the growers
a fhe end of their string