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Money That Grows on Trees
THE people of central Florida laugh at the old saying that money doesn't grow on trees. They know from experience that it does. Of course, it's not freshly-minted U. S. currency; but it works just as well. It's Spanish Moss, and many a family in this sub-tropical region makes a good year-'round living just by picking it off trees.
No expense is necessary for a man to set himself up in this unique business. All he needs is a hooked bamboo pole and the ability to raise his arms overhead. Spanish Moss does not suffer the fluctuations of most other crops. It is a dependable producer, growing plentifully in good season and bad; so there is no danger of a man's business going on the rocks due to a scarcity of raw materials.
Many people consider Spanish Moss a useless parasite; but they are wrong on four counts. It is not Spanish. It is not moss. It is not useless. It is not a parasite.
Spanish Moss is a member of the pineapple family, growing in long black, hair-hke strands covered by a fine grey bark. Its blessed events take place in two ways: it may spread from the migration of seeds which float through the air on tiny feathery parachutes; or a new growth may spring up from a fragment broken off an old plant. The tiniest strand of Spanish Moss can eventually fill a whole tree with grey festoons ten to twelve feet long.
Although it may kill its tree host by smothering it, Spanish Moss is not a parasite. It is an airplant, like an orchid, and it takes all of its nourishment from the rain and air.
Nor is Spanish Moss useless. It is an excellent source of high-grade upholstery material. It is highly resilient, almost indestructible, and naturally mothproof. Louisiana discovered the value of this veil-like growth shortly after the Civil War, but in Florida moss manufacture is a comparatively new industry.
There are three steps in moss production: picking, curing and ginning. An average picker can gather about 500 pounds of moss a day. In Florida, however, the whole family, from Grandma to the toddlers, troop along with the picker.
The large curing yards pay only 50 cents for 100 pounds of the green moss; so the smart pickers cure it themselves. This is very simple and increases the profit angle considerably. Cured moss brings from six to eight times as much as the uncured.
To cure it, the green moss is merely stacked in piles in the open about five feet high. Then it is thoroughly wetted to hasten the disintegration process. After about six weeks, it is turned over with a pitchfork and wet again. It takes about six months to produce the finest black moss.
There is a constant demand for this cured moss from the gin factories dotting central Florida. Many of them ship three or four carloads a week of the "ready-to-use" moss to furniture manufacturers all over the country. Others use it in on-the-spot making of specialized Florida furniture. All of them can use more moss than they get.
Although the Spanish Moss industry is new to the Florida scene, it has already zoomed into the big business category. When a man is out of a job he never need ask for government relief. Just go out and pluck money from trees.
— Pran\ Rose