Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 December 1882 — An Odd Little Industry. [ARTICLE]

An Odd Little Industry.

Just at this time the essence of Wintergreen is very high— as high as $3 a pound. The oil of Wintergreen comes cluefly from New York State, and from Pennsylvania, where the wintergreen vine and the birch trees grow in abundance. The makers of Wintergreen essence are under the surveillance of the government. The oil is made from Wintergreen when wintergreen is abundant. If it is not plenty, birch is used. The plant of the oil-maker consists of a furnace made of rough stones, a boiler, a tin pipe, a trough, a barrel, and a running brook. The tin pipe leads from the top of the boiler through the water in the trough to a barrel. Under the end of the pipe is placed a barrel, and on the end of the pipe in the barrel is hung a glass jar. The boiler is filled with water and birch bark and wintergreen twigs. A fire is built, the steam is forced through the pipe, and is condensed by the pipes passing through the water in the trough. The oil of wintergreen and the water fall into the glass jar, but the oil being heavier than the water, goes to the bottom of the jar, while the water runs over into the barrel and is used again. The business is carried on in ■ certain seasons, both day and night, as the pot must be kept boiling. The meu who work at this business make their homes during the season in the forest or field wherever the birch or wintergreen is to be found. They enjoy an all-season picnic, unless the revenue collector “drops down” upon them, as he does upon many, and collects $36 for every still-liko apparatus he finds. It is supposed that some of the rude affairs for condensing, which the government calls stills, are so concealed in the forest that the collector does not find them. The manufacturers dispose of it (the oil) to apothecaries for about $2 per pound, who, after diluting with alcohol, sell it to confectioners and others at the usual apothecaries’ profit.— Providence Journal. A country preacher was exhorting bis unbelievers, and his text was “The Flood.” As he waxed eloquent, he said: “And Noah warned the wicked that they might repent, but they heeded him not.; and the floods came and drowned them all, and what do you fftippose they thought then ?” A little lady of years had picked up a cane in the corner of the room and was playing with it—a plain stick bent at the end. Papa asked", “What are you doing with the cane?” “It isn’t a cane.” “What is it, then?” “It’s an umbrella without any clothes on it.”