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many, and especially that of Keller at Uarmstadt, who was himself a native 

 of Griesham. The establishments of Dawson, at Edinburgh, and of Ville- 

 raorin, Aiidrieux in Paris, are connected with Keller by business relations. 

 The poorer people of the forest neighborhood, and especially of Griesham, 

 during the autumn and winter months, are engaged in gathering the cones 

 of the pines, fir anS larch, which they bring and sell to Keller's factory and 

 its branches, This gives employment during the winter to nearly a thousand 

 men, who are scattered over the forests of the Duchy, and find renumeration 

 for their labor. 



The gatherers of the fir-cones, particularly those of Griesham, which are 

 distributed in greater and less fellowships throughout the pine-forests be- 

 tween the Rhine, Main and Neckar, are clad in coarse canvass garments. 

 Woolen clothing would be a hindrance to them in climbing trees often a 

 hundred feet high. In rough and stormy weather a worn-out soldier's cloak 

 protects their limbs, and a light cap the head. With climbing-irons fastened 

 npon stout boots or laced gaiters, these "pine-tree birds," in boldness, activ- 

 ity and sureness of foot vying with the squirrels and woodpeckers, clamber 

 swiftly, with vigorous steps, which resound far through the forest, to the 

 summit of the trees, even up to the slender topmost branches, and the snap- 

 ping of the twigs to which the cones are attached announces their busy la- 

 bors. They collect the cones in a linen sack thrown over the shoulder, and 

 fish down those upon the highest and most slender twigs with their only im- 

 plement, a pole about an inch thick and eight or ten feet long, provided 

 with a hook at the end, and in mounting the trees carried suspended in the 

 button-hole. When the industrious workman has filled his sack with pine- 

 cones redolent of resin, he descends from his airy throne as quickly and se- 

 curely as he ascended, empties the contents of his sack in a heap, warms 

 himself at his fire, made of empty cones, and then is ready again for work, 

 which continues thus until the gathering gloom of evening puts an end to his- 

 day's toil. 



A late writer thus describes the process of saving seeds: " In Thuringia,^ 

 also, this gathering of pine-cones is carried on very industriously. ' Often 

 one hears,' says Schacht, in his famous book ' The Tree,' ' a rustling in the 

 topmost branches of the fir-tree, and looks up, expecting to espy a squirrel 

 busily at work, and sees instead a man suspended at the giddy height. It is 

 a ' cone-climber,' who Is clambering with wonderful activity from branch to 

 branch, from tree to tree, in order to gather the pine-cones. The boldness 

 of these people goes so far, that they will in a thick wood, when sitting amid 

 the top branches of a fir, set the treei rocking to and fro, and, when its 

 branches approach the summit of a neighboring tree, spring with a quick, 

 dextrous leap from the one into the other." 



"The process of obtaining the seeds frem the cones is conducted in the 

 following manner. The factory contains three great hot-air kilns, or ovens ; 

 the place of the fourth was taken during the past year by a steam-huating. 



