2-752-614 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'The Moss-Gatherers', 1872. People collecting Spanish moss in the southern USA. '...Spanish moss has become important as an article of commerce, for, when plucked from the trees, from which it is easily separated, and then thoroughly "cured" and threshed of its delicate integuments of bark and leaves, it is found that through the long, thready moss is a delicate fibre as black as jet, and almost as thick as horsehair, which it strikingly resembles. For the stuffing of mattresses and cushions it is valuable, and the increasing demand for it has already opened a new field of enterprise among the denizens of the swamps'. From "Picturesque America; or, The Land We Live In, A Delineation by Pen and Pencil of the Mountains, Rivers, Lakes...with Illustrations on Steel and Wood by Eminent American Artists" Vol. I, edited by William Cullen Bryant. [D. Appleton and Company, New York, 1872]