The new enterprise. (Madison, Fla.) 1901-1908, 1907-10-31


shipped on actual orders at prices that
suit, Your Barnegatter has plenty Of
money and can hold his hay until The
top price is reached. At this moment
there is much hay remaining on ne
fiat, waiting for the high prices which
must prevail, perhaps until August
A young farmer | met on the edgo
OF the fiat was whistling lively tune
and building a new house. You see.
said he, 81 laid up some money truck
ing in the city, during few years Of
hard work and sacrifice. Ny wife and
1 wanted 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 40
except to watch the hay grow. Ia the
summer of the first year a man came
along and offered me $500 for the
hay, just as 1t stood. took the mon
ey and paid OF 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 "a a day and helped him
NOW, rake and stack All winter
helped him compress and truck to the
station. After several years I conciud'
ed TO do no more hard work The hay
crop makes all the money / want with.
out doing a thing I'm putting up new
buildings'and am going to do some lfv
ing. with a small garden for exercise.
other Barnegat fat farmers" how
ever, have other strings to their bows
besides water haying. The hay grows
right up to the line of white ce0afs
and pine forests and takes care Of T.
self until the cutting season. II 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. II 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 fat 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 barge and the bales are fioat-
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-fye bales a day.
The fat is productive of IL tons an
acre, the poorest land sdrting the
pines growing half ton and upward
an acre.
During the summer and auturnp 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 81
stretched over the moss to keep 1t dry
and it Is towed to the compress. Shot
Frazee and his two sons average
hundred tons annually of marine
growth at Forked River The re-
mainder Of the shore is divided up
among other moss farmers. The own
ers Of the shore coneede this Industry
to the men who engage in it without
compensation, as do the owners Of toe
cedar swemps to the peat moss gather
ers. Just why owners are so liberal
in giving away their property is 8
query to which I could get no answer.
Marine and peat moss, baled, brings
$40 a ton delivered at the railway sta
ton, and might be valuable assets %
the owners II they were not SO piatno
rio with hay.
The peat moss, sphagnum cntifolium.
grows everywhere in the cedar
swamps, following the streams from
their sources in the distant bills To
salt water, wherever there Is shade
OF the cedars to support IT, II Is tie
same moss which is the far north SIP.
ports the caribou IN America and tho
reindeer In Siberia. New York Tr|lt
une Farmer