GATHERING THE SPINULOSE SHIELD FERN 



BY FRANK B. TUCKER 



THE spinulose shield fern unexpectedly paid for my 

 vacation several years ago. I never thought when 

 I left New York late in August for a three-week 

 vacation in the Green Mountains that I would return to 

 the city with about as much money in my pockets as 

 when I left. But such was the case. 



While in no way bound to hide the identity of Che 

 place in Vermont where this happy windfall befell me, 

 I do so, lest I give the village — if such it may be called — 

 too great a prominence. It has but two houses that take 

 vacationists. The largest may have accommodations 

 for 40 guests ; the smaller for a third this number. The 

 native all-the-year-round popnlatinn i^ abnut fifty. 



The hamlet, for such it 

 really is, is delightfully 

 situated in a dilation of a 

 valley of a branch of the 

 Deerfield River, some nine- 

 teen hundred feet above sea 

 level, with encircling sum- 

 mits rising another ten 

 hundred feet. Save for the 

 daily trip of a quasi pub- 

 lic stage, that hires itself 

 out for passengers, mail, 

 baggage and freight, and an 

 occasional automobilist on 

 a tour of exploration, the 

 place is unlinked to the 

 busy world. And until the 

 advent of the fern industry 

 it contributed no article of 

 commerce to the world. 



About ten years ago a 

 shrewd eyed native of the 

 locality saw a fortune in the 

 perennial crop of the spin- 

 ulose shield fern that for 

 countless years had grown 

 prodigally in the moist 



woods roundabout. Stories are told of the penury of his 

 circumstances before he conceived the idea of marketing 

 the ferns, contrasted with his present affluence; but one and 

 all acknowledge him as the benefactor of the community. 



The sjMnulose shield fern I have seen growing in lux- 

 uriant abundance in the New England and Middle .Atlan- 

 tic States. Books on ferns state that it is to be found 

 from North Carolina to northernmost Canada. I could 

 not find it, however, in the mountains of western North 

 Carolina, though I searched for it carefully. The books 

 omit any mention as to how far west it grows — a quest^ion 

 of some interest to me ; for I was told that the Vermont 

 crop was sold mostly to the florists of Chicago and Den- 

 ver. Three feet is about its maximum growth ; its width 

 will average about one-third of its length. It is an ever- 



green, very hardy, of a darker, richer green color than 

 the other ferns that grow indigenous with it, and of a 

 feathery, lace-like texture. Brown fruit specks dot its 

 underside at picking time, and its stalk is somewhat scurfy. 

 It is very gregarious, six to a dozen or more stalks 

 clustering about a common center, the clusters grouping 

 themselves often into beds covering a considerable area. 

 It grows in moist woods, being especially thick near 

 water courses. It likes the cooling protection of bould- 

 ers and of fallen, decaying trees. Often it takes root 

 in the latter's crumbling, pulpy wood, or in some 

 crevice of the former where a little soil has found lodg- 

 ment, growing as hardy as its fellows in the fertile soil 



of the woods. 



Picking begins about two 

 weeks before Labor Day 

 and lasts about five weeks. 

 Everyone is welcome to 

 pick ; all are treated alike 

 by the dealer. When the 

 ])icking is good and the 

 pickers numerous he pays 

 them thirty cents for a thou- 

 sand ferns, bunched. When 

 the supply of ferns near his 

 agency has been picked, 

 and it becomes necessary 

 to go deep into the woods 

 for them, pickers are not 

 so numerous, and the price 

 rises to forty cents a thou- 

 sand. While in the spring 

 of years when his sales 

 have been heavy, some- 

 times before the snow has 

 left the ground, he pays 

 thein nmety cents for a 

 thousand ferns, bunched. 

 During the height of the 

 picking season some fami- 

 lies earn as much as ninety dollars a week, clearing some 

 five hundred dollars during the season. To do this 

 means working from early morning until late at night 

 for every member of the family. The men folks start 

 out early in the morning with big hampers, which they 

 fill and deliver several times a day to their women for 

 bunching, at which task the men also assist at night. 



The money the pickers receive is all profit, save for 

 the cost of the thread used to bind the ferns into bunches. 

 A few of the heaviest pickers do pay the larger land- 

 owners a nominal amount for the e.xclusive privilege of 

 picking on their land. This exclusive privilege, however, 

 is of somewhat doubtful value ; for though the land thus 

 allotted is posted against the unlawful picking of ferns, 

 little heed is taken thereof by pickers. 



READY TO START IN THE MORNING 



