5*2 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 461. 



sale meat and live-fowl section to the river, he will find 

 the Magenta, a steamer which sails each afternoon for 

 Keyport, New Jersey. The voyage costs but fifty cents 

 for the sail out and return, and oilers the beholder one 

 of the world's most magnificent spectacles of sea and 

 shore. Leaving the palisades, the shipping along shore, 

 the city, the harbor islands, the forts at the Narrows 

 and the quarantine stations, the purple haze over the 

 brown hills and red fields of Staten Island and New 

 Jersey comes into view. Outgoing ocean steamers pass 

 to the east, the sails of anchored fishing boats catch and 

 reflect the afternoon sunlight, while others are dull gray 

 in the early twilight. The stretch of water crossed in 

 the southward course is smooth or rough, as is the open 

 sea to eastward. Entering Raritan Bay the steamer advances 

 between forests of slender stakes which mark out oyster 

 beds. At the head of the bay is Keyport, from which place 

 the first Christmas greens were shipped to New York more 

 than a half century ago, and this section is still the chief 

 seat of the trade. A representative of the third generation 

 of one of the two or three families who started the industry 

 is now in the business, his energetic ancestor a man-of-war's 

 man of 1812, and, later in life, keeper of the shore Waack- 

 waack lighthouse at Keanesburg. The first consignments 

 were tied up in sheets and carried to market with farm 

 produce on old-style sailboats with lee boards on the out- 

 side. Strong head winds made a wait of perhaps a couple 

 of days necessary in the Kills off Staten Island, and the 

 voyage not infrequently took a week. The early trade 

 was altogether in loose branches of White Pine, Holly, 

 Laurel and Hemlock, and in plants of the Club Mosses, 

 and the gatherings were piled up during late autumn in suc- 

 cessive loads until the houses were nearly hidden behind 

 stacks of boughs. Churches were large buyers, the mem- 

 bers of the congregations making; the designs. Bouquets of 

 berried Black Alder and Ground Pine were the first arrange- 

 ments, and gradually the trade in made pieces grew. 

 Paper flowers were the first bits of bright color introduced, 

 and fifteen years ago immortelles were adopted. The lat- 

 ter are still in general use, besides dyed Cape flowers and 

 Balsam, or Everlasting (Gnaphalium), and sometimes the 

 colored plumes of the grass locally known as Quill weed, 

 some Bitter Sweet and Holly berries. 



For a mile back from the shore of the bay, the entire 

 length of Monmouth County, nearly every household is 

 now engaged in the making of Christmas greens, which 

 include stars, wreaths, hearts, anchors, crosses, triangles 

 and horseshoes, besides great quantities of roping. Keanes- 

 burg, four miles from Keyport, is the busiest section, 

 where neighbors are alluded to as "making" or "not 

 making," according to whether the family is manufac- 

 turing greens at home or some members are engaged in 

 the work in near-by houses. The door-yard sweepings of 

 waste bits of the greens and bright immortelles mark 

 these busy houses. Detached summer kitchens are usually 

 the workshops. Continuous tables are built along the sides 

 or extend through the middle, and before piles of Prin- 

 cess pine, box, laurel, moss, holly, hemlock, immor- 

 telles, Cape flowers and native balsam, young girls work. 

 The social instinct contributes no little to the trade, for the 

 workers come from comfortable homes, many of them 

 established by early-settler ancestors, and their education 

 and conduct are unmistakably good. The makers realize, 

 perhaps, the most satisfaction out of the busy season of 

 eight or nine weeks which follow election day, in being 

 able to give Christmas gifts more freely, in procuring luxu- 

 ries for themselves and in the general festivity of the entire 

 working season. Gay chat and open confidences charac- 

 terize the daytime, and in the evenings groups of whole- 

 some young men, who are boat-builders or who "follow 

 the bay" as oystermen or fishermen, visit one or more of 

 the work-rooms, and a couple of evenings during the busy 

 term are snatched for a neighborhood dance. The evening 

 visitors render little services in sharpening a dulled knife, 

 cutting the roots off of bunches of "balsam," fillingup the 



tables with stock, with a care not to give poor material from 

 the bottom of a sack to a favorite, unrolling and cutting 

 cord into suitable lengths which is tied about a waist in a 

 loose coil, and sometimes one of these hearty, bronzed 

 young fellows will even "make" and add the finished 

 pieces to the day's work of a pretty neighbor. 



Since the great increase of the trade during the past ten 

 or twelve years, and the consequent competition in prices, 

 wages have been much reduced, and enough workers can- 

 not always be secured from among the thrifty fisher folk 

 and farmers near by. Through the extermination of needed 

 materials in northern New Jersey, and consequent excur- 

 sions southward to Barnegat and Toms River, some 

 workers have come from those sections, and thus the busi- 

 ness is spreading to remote points. The workers from 

 other places are boarded, have their laundry work done 

 and receive set weekly wages. Near-by workers are paid 

 by the piece, and while the rates do not sound alluring to 

 the city wage-earner, they are, nevertheless, all that the 

 manufacturer can afford to pay. For making wreaths 

 and other small and plain pieces eight cents a dozen is 

 paid, and for stars, anchors, etc., twenty cents a dozen; 

 four dozen of the more elaborate pieces is a steady and 

 long day's work, from 7 or 8 o'clock in the morning until 

 late in the evening. For making the ordinary grade of flat 

 roping thirty cents is paid for a hundred yards. Two hun- 

 dred yards a day requires accustomed fingers, though 400 

 yards is not an unusual achievement, and a lad last week 

 accomplished 800 yards in a day of thirteen working hours. 

 Sixteen years ago $2.00 a dozen was paid for making stars 

 of holly, and even more for special orders, while $1.50 to 

 $2.25 a hundred yards was earned by making the flat 

 roping, and $4.00 for heavy round roping. The business 

 has seen even greater changes, however ; formerly Ground 

 Pine, Princess Pine and Laurel were abundant hereabout, 

 and the best Holly might be, not too openly, gathered by 

 day on the Government lands at Sandy Hook and carried 

 away in sloops after sunset, costing only the labor. Even 

 Mistletoe was comparatively plentiful on old Sour Gum 

 trees in the swamps near Freehold. Now almost nothing 

 is collected from home fields except the so-called Balsam, 

 and long trips must be made for the nearest laurel and 

 holly. Commission houses in New York sell loose stock 

 to these Monmouth County manufacturers, which has been 

 shipped from the New England and southern states, and 

 one of the largest and longest-established manufacturers, 

 Mr. Robert Seeley, of Keanesburg, makes personal trips 

 during October of each year into a half-dozen states to 

 secure all the stock he needs. Of Princess Pine alone forty 

 tons was used about Keanesburg this season, and this costs 

 $60.00 a ton in New Hampshire and Vermont. With $12.00 

 added for freight, besides cartages, shrinkage and waste, 

 the cost is nearly $80.00 a ton for this raw material. 

 As much as ten cents a pound has been paid for Princess 

 Pine to fill orders after regular supplies were used. Holly 

 is each year becoming more scarce, and further invasions 

 are made into southern New Jersey, for, while many crates 

 and barrels of holly from Delaware, Maryland and Vir- 

 ginia are sent to the New York wholesale dealers, this is 

 necessarily cut in short lengths. The branches and tree- 

 tops from New Jersey intended for decoration are larger 

 and are not crated. A two-horse wagon-load of well- 

 berried holly could be bought in New Jersey three years 

 ago for $25.00. Last year $75.00 was paid for the same 

 quantity, and gray moss, of which none is left in the north- 

 ern part of the state, costs double the price of a few years 

 ago. The best laurel roping, round and heavy, now sells 

 for ten cents a yard on special order, whereas years ago 

 there were standing orders from season to season at thirty 

 cents a yard, with the rope and twine furnished in addition. 

 For the cheaper roping no hemp rope is used, the overlap- 

 ping stems making the foundation. Cultivated Arbor-vitas 

 is bought from nurseries, and native plants are shipped 

 down the Hudson. A nursery stock of 100,000 Juniper- 

 trees was secured by a dealer and used gradually in a few 



