Popular Science Monthly 



651 



Catching Turtles as a Business 



DID you ever wonder where the 

 turtle in your soup at the fashion- 

 able restaurant came from? Did you 

 know that many of the buttons on your 

 clothes were made from the backs of 

 snapping turtles? In early September, 

 when turtles are house-hunting among 

 the pebbles and worms in the muddy 

 bed of some fresh water creek, prepara- 

 tory to sleeping away several months of 

 cold winter weather, men are getting 

 ready to wake them up in the middle of 

 their nap by jabbing a steel hook into 

 their backs. The work of hunting 

 turtles, though it begins in the early 

 autumn, continues all through the winter 

 months. 



The hunting of turtles has become a 

 specialty with J. S. Bassler, who can 

 boast of catching four and five tons every 

 year. He uses a heavy steel rod bearing 

 a hook at the end. Fitted with rubber 

 boots and warm clothes, Mr. Bassler 

 wades along the stream, jabbing the 

 hook into the muddy bottom. Rudely 

 awakened from his comfortable, ice- 

 cold bed, the turtle is jerked out of the 

 water on the end of the hook. 



The turtle hunters usually select 

 some country having numerous small 

 streams. Here they pitch their tent 

 and remain for several days, working 

 within a radius of eight or ten miles 

 from camp. After the streams are 

 exhausted, they move on to another 

 section of country. Sometimes five 

 hundred pounds of turtles are -found in 

 the same hole, and thousands of pounds 

 are caught during the usual stay in each 

 camp. 



The live turtles are placed in large 

 bags and carried to the road where they 

 are loaded in a wagon. A bag of turtles 

 weighs between one hundred and one 

 hundred and twenty-five pounds. The 

 turtles are later packed in sugar barrels, 

 one on top of another, each barrel 

 weighing as much as three hundred and 

 twenty-five pounds. They will live in 

 this condition for many days. The 

 chief markets, like New York and 

 Chicago, pay from six to twelve cents a 

 pound for turtles, including the shells. 



Turtle soup is made from ordinary 

 snapping turtles and not from green sea 

 turtles, as gourmets fondly believe. 



Why Logwood Is Worth $200 a Ton 



THE great bulk of the logwood from 

 all regions of its growth is used to 

 obtain black dyes which result from its 

 use with alum and iron bases. The use 

 of logwood dates back over two hundred 

 and fifty years, and from that time on 

 the logs from Yucatan and Honduras 

 have been considered far superior to 

 those obtained from Jamaica and Santo 

 Domingo. It may be of interest to note 

 that the logwood tree is not a native of 

 Jamaica. 



The first shipment of logs that came 

 into England in about 1550 was obtained 

 at points on the Spanish Main and it 

 seems that at first the dyers were unable 

 to obtain durable colors. In order to 

 protect the public the use of logwood 

 was forbidden in 1581 by an Act of 

 Parliament. The dyers in France and 

 Germany, however, soon developed the 

 use of log^vood. After that English 

 dyers were again permitted to use it, 

 with the result that the demand for log- 

 wood began to increase. The wood from 

 Campeche soon brought a price as high 

 as $500 per ton, and that from Jamaica 

 about $250. At the present time the 

 Campeche wood sells for about $200 per 

 ton and that from Jamaica and Haiti 

 $100. 



The world's present annual consump- 

 tion of logwood is estimated at about 

 200,000 tons, of which the United States 

 consumes approximately 30,000 tons. 

 The import statistics for 19 14 show that 

 20,000 tons of logwood came from 

 Jamaica and about 10,000 tons largely 

 from Haiti. The Bureau of Statistics of 

 the Department of Commerce and Labor 

 supplies the following figures in refer- 

 ence to the sources, quantities and values 

 of logwood imported during 1910. 



SOURCE QtANTITY VALUE 



British Honduras 1,005 tons $ 16,491 



British West Indies .. . 11,187 " i37,9o6 



Haiti 19,022 " 200,544 



Mexico 449 " 5.381 



St. Domingo 434 " 3,914 



Other Coiintries 221 " 4,212 



The present bad condition of the dye 

 trade in the United States has called forth 

 numerous propositions for remed>ing the 

 difficulties, but nothing practical has 

 been done. 



