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feat it. Not more than $50,000 worth of ferns are harvested in 

 Berkshire every year and if the business is killed it means that 

 the chief source of income for scores of families will be abolished. 

 As showing the extent of the industry John Abbott, of Hinsdale, 

 buys more than $10,000 worth each year. L. B. Brague does an 

 equally large business and there are several more in and about 

 Hinsdale. 



"It is estimated that more than 100.000.000 ferns are gathered 

 each year and put in cold storage at Springfield to be sent broad- 

 cast over the country. From all over the country come in the 

 farmers with their great loads of ferns, some of which bring as 

 high a price as $2.50 a load. For the past twenty years dealers 

 in Hinsdale have been in the fern business and they say there 

 has not been the slightest diminution in the supply. 



"All the year up to the time of frost in the autumn, farmers 

 have their entire families out getting ferns; ferns of all descrip- 

 tions from the delicate maiden-hair to the austere brakes. The 

 roots are always saved and in many cases land that is of no value 

 for other purposes brings in a good revenue from the ferns. 



"The bill provides that the pickers must have a license to 

 conduct their business and that a certificate must follow each 

 lot of ferns from the time they are gathered in the woods of 

 Berkshire until they reach the final purchaser in some large city. 



"This red tape would kill the business entirely, the dealers 

 say. It is said that Mr. Treadway has been prompted in this 

 measure by summer residents of Stockbridge and vicinity. It is 

 said that Italians coming up to Stockbridge have raised havoc 

 with the beauty of woods in southern Berkshire and hence his 

 wish to save them. A man interested in fern gathering said to- 

 day that at least one-fourth of the people of Berkshire are directly 

 interested in the fern business." 



When a man owning a piece of land chooses to market the 

 ferns upon it, or to allow others to do so, no one can object, for 

 a man may do as he will with his own. If he decided to cut 

 down his woodland, plow up the ferns and sow other crops upon 

 the land, no one would criticise him. But the gathering of ferns 

 from the lands of another without permission is quite another 

 matter and the sooner the people of Massachusetts and other 

 New England States put a stop to such practices, the better. 



