Scientific American, Vol. XXXVII.—No. 2. [New Series.], July 14, 1877 by Various, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. THE CARRIGEEN CROP.
THE CARRIGEEN CROP.
To the great majority of people, Carrigeen, under the more familiar name of Irish Moss, is known chiefly as the basis of a pleasant and wholesome drink for the sick room, or as an article of use in the preparation of delicacies for the table. Comparatively few are aware of its wide and varied use in the arts, or that the thousands of barrels of it employed annually by our manufacturers of paper, cloth, felt, and straw hats, etc., and by brewers, is not an Irish, but an American product, and, speaking strictly, is not a moss but a seaweed.
Carrigeen (chondrus crispus) is to be found more or less abundantly all along our northern coast, ranging between the low water line and the depth of forty feet, or so; but as a rule its fronds, which correspond to the leaves of air plants, are so numerously inhabited by small mollusca that they are spoiled for other use. The clean-growing article seems to be limited almost wholly to certain ledges in the neighborhood of Scituate, Mass.—a section of coast guarded by the celebrated Minot Ledge Lighthouse, and famous for its danger to shipping. Here, where the waves of the Atlantic dash with full force upon the rocky coast, the carrigeen grows to perfection; and wherever it escapes the spawn of mussels and other shellfish, is gathered during the summer season in vast quantities.
The harvest begins in May and ends about the first of September. The gathering is made in two ways—by hand-picking during exceptionally low tides, and by means of long-handled iron-toothed rakes at ordinary tides. Of course the work cannot be carried on except during fair weather. Hand-pulling is possible only during the bi-monthly periods of spring tides, that is, when the moon is full and again at new moon. At such times high tide occurs about midday and midnight, and the ledges are exposed for moss gathering morning and evening. The mossers' boats are rowed to the rocks where the finest grades abound, and the gatherers select with great care the growths that are freest from minute shells and other foreign matter. This portion of the crop, if properly handled afterwards, generally goes to the apothecary and fetches a price two or three times that of the common grade.
As the tide rises the pickers are driven to their boats, and proceed to the outer moss-bearing rocks where the rake is used, as it also is during ordinary low tides. Moss taken in this way is not so clean as the hand-picked, and is always mixed with tape grass, which must be removed during the process of curing and packing.
The curing of the moss is the most critical part of this peculiar farming. On being brought to the shore the moss is black and unsightly; it must be bleached as well as dried. The bleaching is effected by repeated wetting and drying in the sun; and as the moss is readily soluble in fresh water the bleaching beds are situated near the banks of the salt creeks that abound along the shore. After drying, the moss is packed in tubs and rolled to the water, where it is thoroughly washed, then rolled back to the bleaching bed, to be dried again in the sun. Five or six such exposures are usually sufficient. On the bleaching ground, the moss is carefully spread and turned, and watchfully guarded against wetting by rain. In this process it turns from black to red, then to the yellowish-white of the perfected article. When properly cured the moss is stored in bulk, in shanties; where, as time permits, it is picked over and packed in barrels. The crop averages about half a million pounds a year; and thanks to the brighter and more abundant sunshine of our coast, the moss has a brighter color and is of finer quality than the Irish product.
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