140 
‘Ihe RURAL NEW-YORKER 
January 25, lyib 
Pastoral Parson and His Country Folks 
By Rev. George B. Gilbert 
Back Country Cash. —It seems so 
hard for people to make a living now ’way 
'back on the lonely roads that the Parson 
got desperate. I low did people live ’way 
down there in the old time when they 
raised big families and got no more for 
farm stuff than they do now. nor as much? 
They got along and made both ends meet 
and often paid for their places besides. 
“Now, I don’t want to appear too inquisi¬ 
tive or prying into your affairs.” said the 
Parson the other night as he sat by the 
cozy hearth of an old-timer some 15 miles 
down county, “but I would like to know 
where you got your ready cash in the days 
long gone by when you were living on this 
place and raising a large family. Where 
did you get your money from? What did 
you have to turn off?” 
Charcoal. —While the man was rum¬ 
inating over the long past, his wife ans¬ 
wered for him in a flash. One word told 
the story. “Charcoal.” Carrying it to 
The Woodcliopper’s Hut 
markets 10, 14 and even 18 miles away, 
with two horses, was the way to get hold 
of a little ready money in those days, and 
it is a mighty good way now. Such stuff 
as the farm did produce in the eating 
line, a few eggs, a few pounds of hotter, 
possibly a few bushels of potatoes to 
spare, were taken along with the charcoal 
as a side line. 
Advantage Over Wood. —The great 
advantage of selling charcoal over that 
of wood consists in its being so much 
lighter for the value. It takes wood that 
is so heavy that it does not pay to cart it 
too far. and makes it light so you can carry 
enough to make it pay. A ton of char¬ 
coal is worth from three to four times as 
much as a ton of wood. A “bag” of char¬ 
coal weighs from eight to 10 pounds. This 
is regulated by law in some States, and 
anyone going to sell charcoal must be sure 
and look up the law in regard to it. A 
man down county fixed up an auto truck 
and branched out in great shape, going 
to a big ciy 17 miles beyond his usual 
market. He backed up to the curb and 
began to unload at a handsome price when 
a “cop” happened along and spoiled all 
the fun. He calmly took a bag and car¬ 
ried it into the nearest grocery store and 
weighed it. It was under the lawful 
amount. Then that unobliging cop noticed 
the markers. They were old pleasure car 
markers put on the truck with its 240 
bags of charcoal. “Isn’t that a pretty 
heavy turnout for a pleasure car?” he 
said.' So the young fellow got pulled for 
both, and got just enough for the coal to 
settle up ! 
Size of Load. —One good horse ought 
to take 150 bags over most any kind of 
road, worth from 820 to $2.) around here 
in Connecticut. The price of charcoal 
jumped with the great demand of the 
munition factories from six or seven cents 
wholesale to 13 and even up to 17 cents. 
It is the opinion around here that it will 
not drop much now. City and town folks 
seem to buy it for domestic use even if it 
is high. A small car will carry 100 bags 
easilv over bad roads, if the weight is well 
distributed over the chassis and not all 
hung on the rear axle. Two horses ought 
to carry 300 bags, worth from $35 to $40. 
How far from town it pays to stop selling 
wood and turn it into charcoal depends 
very much on the roads and on which the 
market seems to want the most. • On or¬ 
dinary country roads about five to seven 
miles seems to be the limit where the 
wood business ends and the charcoal burn¬ 
ing begins. One of the Parson’s families 
down county took charcoal with a pair of 
steers all last year to a market 10 miles 
away and considered that it paid the best 
of anything they could do. The wagon 
that carries it should have springs to keep 
from shaking the bags to pieces. 
Method of Packing. —The Parson has 
been speaking of bags because that is 
reallv about the only way it is ever sold 
about here now. except when taken direct 
to the big factories. It makes a fine way 
of handling it, and a good rainy-day job 
if under cover. You get a big funnel and 
rest it on a frame and shovel the coal in 
the top. The mouth of the bag just fits 
over the mouth of this big funnel and 
should rest on a platform and not have to 
be held. The old two-bushel basket meth¬ 
od has entirely disappeared, at least 
around here. 
“Two Bushels.” —The Parson says 
“two bushels,” and perhaps it was two 
bushels, and perhaps it was not. An old- 
time dominie down country was once per¬ 
suading a young fellow to come into the 
church. At least he ought to bo baptized ; 
he was very sick. But no. for some rea¬ 
son he felt he could not take the step. 
He wrestled mightily within himself and 
at last burst out crying. “If I get well I 
shall have to peddle charcoal with Dad. 
and you can't do that and belong to a 
church. A bushel ain't a bushel, and 
that’s all there is to it.” 
The Bag Itself. —Bags cost about 
twice what they did, and yet by the thou¬ 
sand or more do not come very heavy. It 
pays to get fairly good bags and not have 
them forever breaking open. It is well 
to have your name and something about 
your product printed on the bag. The 
Parson found three bags in the road the 
other day. and “»Sit” is bringing one in 
from the back porch. It reads : 
: Quick Fire 
: CHARCOAL 
: Made from Selected Wood 
: Best Adapted for Family Use 
: Start Fire Quickly and Without 
: Smoke 
This was followed by name and address. 
Do not bag up too much and pack it away 
to sell some time in the future. The 
whole will collect moisture and you will 
find the bags all rotted, and a pretty mess 
of it you will have. 
Getting Ready. —One of the best 
things about this business is that you can 
work at it whenever you want to and not 
interfere with other work on the farm. 
You can be getting the wood cut and 
hauled to where you are going to have the 
pit during the Winter. It is well to have 
the pit near the wood and just drag it in 
with the horse in long sticks and logs and 
there cut it up. This cuts out loading and 
unloading and hauling. But if you want 
to watch it from the farmhouse itself you 
must have the pit near by. 
Watching It. —For watch the pit you 
must, or you will have your pains for 
nothing. It will burst out and the whole 
thing burn up. If far from the house 
you must have a “hut” to live in. for you 
must attend to it every two or three hours 
at best, and oftener will do no harm. 
Sometimes quite comfortable huts are 
fixed up. and a man and his wife stay 
there and have a real camping-out time. 
If not too far away you can come up to 
the house for meals and chores. But you 
must not linger or oversleep because in a 
big pit you have too much money at 
stake. 
The Wood. —Here is another good 
thing about it—you can use any kind of 
wood under the sun. To be sure, some 
The Wood in Place 
kinds will make better charcoal than 
others—yet all may lie used. Most people 
mix the various hard and soft woods, and 
this makes a good coal. Most burners 
cut the wood five feet—some 5% feet. 
This last is a favorite length. While you 
can have all kinds of wood you cannot 
have all sizes. It must be about the same 
size for good results. You will see how 
it looks in the picture. The man who 
put up that pile is one of the very best 
burners in miles around, who has made 
a business of it for years—and a living 
too. He never peddles, but wholesales 
right at the pit. Wood cut in the Winter 
is in fine shape to burn the next Fall, but 
green and dry wood should not be mixed 
to any great extent. Like big and small 
wood, it will not get done at the same 
time. Perfectly green wood can be burned 
all night. 
Making the Pit. —Now we are ready 
to make the pit. We have a good level 
place for the pit itself, and room for teams 
to come and turn round and carry off the 
charcoal, also room for the “crib.” It 
must also be a place where you can dig 
up the earth without being too awful 
rooty or stony. If it is where you can 
rake up a good lot of leaves it will save 
using hay. 
The Cor House. —Now we will take 
some of this wood and cut it right in half 
and build up a cob house right in the 
middle of the place where the pit is to 
be. When we get it up six feet or so we 
will pile the wood around it as seen in 
the picture. When we have enough to 
hold it well we will run the cob house up 
another story and pile wood around it 
on top of this wood. We will not put 
the wood too tight, as if we do there is 
liable to be an explosion while it is burn¬ 
ing. How much wood shall we put around 
this pile? 
The Amount of Wood. —Let us do a 
little figuring. It is better to burn a 
good big pile, at least after you have had 
a little experience, as when you are at 
it. it will not be much more work than a 
small pile—only it will take a little 
longer. A really big pit such as the reg¬ 
ular burners put up will take 25 solid 
cords. This will produce 1,000 bushels, 
or about 2.700 good-sized bags. When 
delivered in town this ought to bring $300, 
and in some cities much more. This 
would be $12 a cord for the wood, and 
is a grand good price as you see. If the 
coal is good you would quite likely get 
enough over the $300 to pay for tin' bags. 
Of course 12 or 15 cords will make a 
very fair pit if you are going to try it 
for the first time. 
How to Cover the Pit. —Now we will 
take leaves or, if we cannot get the leaves, 
The Pit Smoking 
we will take cheap meadow hay, and put 
enough on to keep the dirt from rattling 
down through the wood. We can let the 
dirt follow along with the first covering 
so it will not blow off. If we have good, 
heavy, tough sods we may not need either 
leaves or hay. But one or the other cov¬ 
ering is generally used. Now we will 
put on about four good inches of dirt. 
We will cover it all up except just the 
top of our cob house in the middle, 
which is about two feet square. Be sure 
to dig up plenty of loose dirt to use in a 
hurry in case needed. Have the thick¬ 
ness of the dirt quite uniform, so as not 
to leave any thin places for the flame to 
break out easily. 
Starting the Fire. —Now let the Par¬ 
son say right here that if it were any way 
possible to get some one of experience to 
come and start the fire in this pit and 
stay around a day or two, he would do 
it, no matter if it cost something. It is 
a trick to burn charcoal, and it is a still 
bigger trick to burn it right. Of course 
one can learn by experience, but it is 
often a mighty expensive way. “Exper¬ 
ience is a good teacher, and fools will 
learn in no other way” is a pretty good 
proverb after all. It is too hard work to 
cut the wood and get it all ready to have 
it turn out poor, fine, ashy stuff. It must 
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