The Lee County journal. (Leesburg, Ga.) 1904-19??, 1907-10-04


sides of the water, and as far as the
pye can pierce. These stacks are
very gradually reduced to bales and
/ shipped on actual orders at prices that
suit. Your Barnegatter has plenty Of
money and can hold his hay until the
4 top price is reached At this moment
/ there is much hay remaining on the
/ fat, waiting for the high prices which
must prevail, perhaps until August
/ A young farmer | met on the edge
of the fat was whistlng lively tune
and building a new house. you see"
said he, q laid up some money truck
4 ing in the city, during a few years Of
hard work and sacrifice My wife and
4 | wanted q farm, without so much do
! ing and with more to eat and wear
! / looked around and decided on hay,
and bought an old farm here at Forked
River The price was $500. / paid
part down and gave mortgage for the
rest. There was nothing much to do
except to watch the hay grow. In the
summer of the first year a man came
along and offered me $500 for the
hay, just as it stood. | took the mon
ey and paid off the mortgage. Pretty
| good for a trucker on his first year
Of farming, Ell? Then | turned around
and hired myself and team out to the
purchaser for 81 a day, and helped him
NOV, rake and stack All winter l
helped him compress and truck to the
station. After several years / conclud-
ed to do no more hard work. The hay
crop makes all the money | want with
out doing thing, I'm putting up new
buildings and am going to do some liv-
ing, with a small garden for exercise"
Other Barnegat fiat farmers" how
ever, have other strings to their bows
besides water haying. The hay grows
right up to the line of white cedars
and pine forests and takes care of it.
f, self until the cutting season. If you
examine you will find the farmer"
/ often busy inland with a sawmill get
ting out lumber at about $50 per thou
sand, his own mill working his own
forests. The little shipyards all around
the bay want his lumber If he has
| no mill he has lumber sawed, or sells
his trees, which grow high and fine
near the water. The salt meadow man,
however, has really little need of in
dustries or occupations to enrich him.
/ All through the fiat are channels wide
enough for barges Along these he
builds square platforms, with floors
| just above high tide and on them
erects his haystacks. When the hay
is ordered, a compress is set up at the
stack and the hay is baled. Along
comes a barge and the bales are float
ed to whatever station the shipper
elects. Often to save transportation
the hay is barged to the head of the
bay at Seaside Park. One horse hay
compressers are generally in USE
turning out seventy-fve bales a day
The fiat is productive of / 10 tons an
acre, the poorest land sldrting the
pines growing half ton and upward
an acre.
During the summer and autumn men
are busily engaged turning over, dry
ing and raking up the marine weeds,
grasses and algae that have been
driven ashore around the bay by tide
and wind. A barge accompanies the
rakers, to which the moss is taken on
a big two-wheeled hand rick When
barge is loaded a canvas is
stretched over the moss to keep it dry
and it is towed to the compress. Shot
Frazee and his two sons average a
hundred tons annually of marine
growth at Forked River. The re-
ma1nder of the shore is divided up
among other moss farmers. The own
ers of the shore concede this industry
to the men who engage in it without
compensation, as do the owners of the
cedar swamps to the peat moss gather
ers. Just why owners are so liberal
in giving away their property is
query to which could get no answer.
Marine and peat moss, baled, brings
$40 ton delivered at the railway sta
,tion, and might be valuable assets to
the owners if they were not so pletho-
ric with hay.
The peat moss, sphagnum cutifolium,
grows everywhere in the cedar
swamps, following the streams from
their sources in the distant hills to
salt water, wherever there is shade
OF the cedars to support it. 1t is the
same moss which is the far north sup
ports the caribou in America and the
reindeer in Siberia.-New York Trib-
une Farmer