Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/679

Rh Catching Turtles as a Business

DID you ever wonder where the turtle in your soup at the fashion- able restaurant came from? Did you know that many of the buttons on your clothes were made from the backs of snapping turtles? In early September, when turtles are house-hunting among the pebbles and worms in the muddy bed of some fresh water creek, prepara- tory to sleeping away several months of cold winter weather, men are getting ready to wake them up in the middle of their nap by jabbing a steel hook into their backs. The work of hunting turtles, though it begins in the early autumn, continues all through the winter months.

The hunting of turtles has become a specialty with J. S. Bassler, who can boast of catching four and five tons every year. He uses a heavy steel rod bearing a hook at the end. Fitted with rubber boots and warm clothes, Mr. Bassler wades along the stream, jabbing the hook into the muddy bottom. Rudely awakened from his comfortable, ice- cold bed, the turtle is jerked out of the water on the end of the hook.

The turtle hunters usually select some country having numerous small streams. Here they pitch their tent and remain for several days, working within a radius of eight or ten miles from camp. After the streams are exhausted, they move on to another section of country. Sometimes five hundred pounds of turtles are -found in the same hole, and thousands of pounds are caught during the usual stay in each camp.

The live turtles are placed in large bags and carried to the road where they are loaded in a wagon. A bag of turtles weighs between one hundred and one hundred and twenty-five pounds. The turtles are later packed in sugar barrels, one on top of another, each barrel weighing as much as three hundred and twenty-five pounds. They will live in this condition for many days. The chief markets, like New York and Chicago, pay from six to twelve cents a pound for turtles, including the shells.

Turtle soup is made from ordinary snapping turtles and not from green sea turtles, as gourmets fondly believe.

��Why Logwood Is Worth $200 a Ton

THE great bulk of the logwood from all regions of its growth is used to obtain black dyes which result from its use with alum and iron bases. The use of logwood dates back over two hundred and fifty years, and from that time on the logs from Yucatan and Honduras have been considered far superior to those obtained from Jamaica and Santo Domingo. It may be of interest to note that the logwood tree is not a native of Jamaica.

The first shipment of logs that came into England in about 1550 was obtained at points on the Spanish Main and it seems that at first the dyers were unable to obtain durable colors. In order to protect the public the use of logwood was forbidden in 1581 by an Act of Parliament. The dyers in France and Germany, however, soon developed the use of log^vood. After that English dyers were again permitted to use it, with the result that the demand for log- wood began to increase. The wood from Campeche soon brought a price as high as $500 per ton, and that from Jamaica about $250. At the present time the Campeche wood sells for about $200 per ton and that from Jamaica and Haiti $100.

The world's present annual consump- tion of logwood is estimated at about 200,000 tons, of which the United States consumes approximately 30,000 tons. The import statistics for 19 14 show that 20,000 tons of logwood came from Jamaica and about 10,000 tons largely from Haiti. The Bureau of Statistics of the Department of Commerce and Labor supplies the following figures in refer- ence to the sources, quantities and values of logwood imported during 1910.

��SOURCE QtANTITY VALUE

British Honduras 1,005 tons $ 16,491

British West Indies .. . 11,187 " i37,9o6

Haiti 19,022 " 200,544

Mexico 449 " 5.381

St. Domingo 434 " 3,914

Other Coiintries 221 " 4,212

The present bad condition of the dye trade in the United States has called forth numerous propositions for remed>ing the difficulties, but nothing practical has been done.