Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 October 1889 — IN A HUCKLEBERRY CAMP. [ARTICLE]

IN A HUCKLEBERRY CAMP.

The Army That Gathers Each Year In the Hoosihr Marshes. Walkerton. Ind:, Cor: Chicago Herald. The huckleberry season is over in northern Indiana. The last picker has packed his basket- and decamped, and now only a few rough board shanties and a lot of miscellaneous debris scattered through the woods which line the marshes are all that mark the site of what was a few weeks ago a city of nearly 1,000 inhabitants. Eighty miles southeast of Chicago, and five miles from Walkerton, Ind., are the huckleberry marshes from which this "city and all tributary points draw their annual supplies. The berries have been growing at this point, year after year, since long prior to the memory of the oldest inhabitant. Half a century ago the Indians who fished and trapped In this region discovered the succulent little fruit, and the bushes yielded a bountiful harvest to the squaws who plucked the berries for the noble red man, who usually ate them without cream and sugar. At present 1,300 acres of bottom land, which border on St. Joseph, Marshall and Stark counties, are covered with huckleberry bushes, which yield annually anywhere from 125,000 to 150,000 quarts of berries. This immense crop is gathered by an army of pickers, which begins to congregate the Ist of July. The season lasts on an average about six weeks, and during this time the woods which surround the marshes on all sides are transformed into live villages, of tents and shanties, in which the pickers live. Restaurants, dry goods stores and saloons are to be found on the main street of the temporary town. A good picker can earn $2.50 a day, but few average over $1.50. Men, women, boys and girls are employed in this work, and the children often earn as much as their parents. Girls from the age of 15 and upward are usually the fastest pickers, their nimble fingers and lithe bodies forming just the combination necessary to facilitate work. The largest picking on record for one day’s work was made several years ago by two Swedes, who, to decide a $lO bet, started at 6 o’clock one morning for an all-day job. Nelson, the winner, picked ninety-six quarts, his opponent having only two quarts less. The price paid was 10 cents per quart. This record has never been beaten. An expert will fasten the basket about his waist and pick with both hands; many of the oldtimers do this, but the majority use but one hand and hold the basket in the other. At one time pails were used in the place of baskets, but the berries sweated so in the tins that the buyers ordered them discarded.

A band of brigands has been terrorizing Macedonia, which, upon final capture, was found to include several priests, a Greek Archimandrite, the superior of a monastery, and three “ladies.”