800 
ON THE GATH ERIN G AND CURING OF 
pulling-rakes, turning-rakes, and washing-tubs are put in order or replaced with new 
articles. The boats receive careful inspection. A coat of paint or an application ot tar 
is perhaps, the result. These boats are frequently loaded to the water's edge, and, when 
the supplv of the more adjacent ledges is exhausted, often perform trips of several miles 
with such a freight. A leaky boat would be unpleasant—not to say dangerous. I he 
“navigation” is, however, generally very safe, notwithstanding it is over ledges of rocks 
that are known to all mariners as extremely dangerous to shipping 
The Chondrus- bearing ledges are all within a few miles of the celebrated Minot 
Ledge light-house. Seven shipwrecks have been counted at one time on this shore, all 
in plain view. The light-tower rises 90 feet from a submerged rock, but at this writing 
the sea breaks against it so high that at times it is entirely hidden from sight ! let m 
a few months scores of men will be moving about among these rocks, gathering a crop 
that hardly one in a thousand in the States knows anything about! . 
The tools of the moss-gatherers are few and simple. The pullmg-rake is the most 
important. It is a long-handled rake, with long, flat iron teeth set closely together. 
The tub is a half-hogshead; the turning-rake a common hay-rake ;< while the boats 
vary considerably, but are good in a sea-way, especially when handled by experienced 
Ill CD 
The spring tides are selected for pulling, because the tide ebbs out lower than at 
common or neap tides. Spring tides occur at every new and full moon, when it is 
always high-water a little before twelve o’clock ; so the pulling comes at morning or 
evening or both. The spring tides also expose a superior and cleaner variety ot the 
plant, which is “ hand-pulled ” and carefully cured. Apothecaries buy this, and in the 
form of delicate blanc-mange it finds a welcome at the table and at the couch of the m- 
Va The period of the spring tides is an exciting time with the mossers. The song of the 
boatman as he rows, the merry laugh and frolic of the boys, indicate that harvest time 
with them is come, and that before the husbandman has sown his corn ! It is not in¬ 
tended to intimate, however, that moss-raking is as pleasant as raking red-top and clover. 
On the contrary, many tough farmer boys, after wading and pulling moss among the 
rocks on a cold morning in May, would doubtless abandon the business in disgust. A 
nervous man would hardly like it. There is a certain animal that roams among the 
rocks around, with such powerful pincers as to inspire a constant solicitude for the 
extremities; and woe to the luckless wight who comes in contact with them. Over a 
hundred thousand lobsters are taken annually by the fishermen of Scituate. 
At the earliest dawn the boats are launched and rowed to the rocks where the best 
quality may be found. If it is a very low ebb, the boat is forced as far among the 
rocks toward the shore as it will float, and the “ hand-pulling ” is vigorously commenced. 
The gatherers are not confined to the rocks immediately adjacent to the grounded boats. 
These exhausted, they wade to others and pick into baskets. Great care is constantly 
exercised to get good, clean moss, free from minute shells and tape-grass, for upon this 
the mosser reckons his price per pound. This pull also receives particular attention in 
bleaching and packing, and finally fetches two or three times as much as the common 
kll As' the tides in ebbing finally cease to expose the belt of rocks that produce the fa¬ 
vourite variety, the marine farmer repairs with boat and rake to the outer Chondrus- 
bearing rocks, whose abundant crops wave and surge with the swell. Here the iron 
teeth do great service, coming up filled with a variety that contributes largely to the 
wants of the brewer and the cloth manufacturer. This moss is never so free from a 
living coating as the hand-pulled, and is mixed at first with tape-grass (Valhsnena 
spiralis) and other foreign substances. If he be an honest mosser you will, nevertheless, 
get, a good article. Some men can scarcely fail to make good carrageen of any gather, 
and they should be encouraged. Messrs. Howe and French, of Boston, are doing more 
in this direction than any other dealers. . , 
The advancing tide or a laden boat compels a return to the shore. I he boat is shot 
upon the beach, and the hand-barrows come into use. Two men soon carry away the 
load to the top of the beach, where it is spread on the bleaching-beds to dry. The re¬ 
maining process any good housewife of the olden time well understands. Like the 
linen at the spring, it must be alternately wet and dried until the proper degree of 
w T hiteness is attained. 
