so THE WEALTH OF THE SEA 



and assimilated by the body, they are highly recom- 

 mended as hot-weather foods for those who do little 

 manual work. 



Alg^ as Food in America and Great Britain 



Before 1835, Irish moss was considered a luxury 

 in America; its price was always a dollar or more 

 per pound, for the entire American supply was 

 imported from Europe. In that year Dr. J.V.C. 

 Smith, at one time mayor of Boston, found it in 

 considerable quantities on the Massachusetts coast 

 and suggested curing it. Since then Scituate, 

 Massachusetts, has furnished sufficient Irish moss 

 for American needs. Because of the abundance of the 

 moss on the Massachusetts coast, the price rapidly 

 dropped, and in 1880 it sold for three cents a pound. 



Formerly the Massachusetts industry produced 

 nearly a million pounds of the dried and bleached 

 moss annually, but in recent years the production 

 has decreased until in 1919 only about two hundred 

 thousand pounds was produced. The center of the 

 Irish moss industry is still at Scituate, but small 

 amounts are also harvested at Cape Porpoise, Ports- 

 mouth, Gloucester, Marblehead, Nahant, Cohasset, 

 Plymouth, White Horse Beach, and Cuttyhunk 

 Island, Massachusetts, and at Block Island and 

 Montauk, New York. 



Most of the crop is gathered by men in boats, who 

 rake the moss from rocks in shallow water. For this 

 purpose they use a long-handled rake with long fine 

 teeth. When brought ashore, the moss is washed in 

 sea-water and then spread out on the beach to dry. 



