Jim Bradshaw: When people in the Basin made money from moss

For years, cypress timber was the big money maker in the Atchafalaya Basin for those who could invest in crews to cut the trees and the mills to saw them into lumber.

But lesser folk made money from the Spanish moss that hung from those trees, some years a good bit of money.

1923 was one of those years, according to the headline in the Teche News on March 10.

“Moss Picking Paying Very Well,” it proclaimed.

The story said, “A large amount of moss is brought to town every week, most of it coming from the Catahoula section, and selling at prices that make the moss business a profitable one. Many people are engaged in picking moss which is readily sold for cash … [at prices] better than any crop.”

The moss was cured and used for all sorts of things from mattress stuffing to car seats to braided ropes, and a substantial industry lasted into relatively modern times.

As late as 1943, an article in the journal “Economic Geography” reported, that moss gathering was “the basis of a rather distinctive Louisiana industry, one that provides periodic or regular employment for many people.”

The jobs and profits were aided by the fact that south Louisiana was about the only place where commercial quantities could be found, and had been for some time.       

An 1867 report on the Louisiana economy noted that “Spanish moss, the long moss of our commerce, is almost wholly a product of Louisiana; no where else found in sufficient quantities to make it an object of commerce.” 

Emmeline Broussard reminisced for the newspaper in 1986 about picking moss and pecans in the Atchafalaya area.

Her father, Delma Broussard, moved his family to Coteau Holmes in 1920 and was probably one of those contributing to the good 1923 harvest.

“It was rough,” she recalled, “because there were more people in the woods picking than there was moss to pick. But you could go to the general store and sell it to Mr.

Olivier, and later to J. Z. Berard, or trade it for goods in their store.”

Alfred BuPord, recollected in that same article, “I don’t think there was much farming until after the levee was built because everything would flood and it was densely wooded.

"We’d have to get around in pirogues in the springtime, the water got so high. l do remember a lot of moss picking. We’d bring it to the moss gin in St. Martinville and sell it for the manufacturers to make powder or upholstery stuffing. The Randazzo brothers handled most of the moss that was picked around here.”

Commercial shipments of Spanish moss apparently began just after the Civil War, when upholsterers started using a lot of it.

In 1927, near the peak of the trade, about 1,200 carloads, valued at about $2.5 million, were shipped out of Louisiana.

That would be more than $40 million in today’s dollars, and that may have been as good as things got.

Synthetic materials developed after World War II eventually killed the Louisiana moss market.

There were only a few gins left by the middle 1960s, and they were struggling.

Curing was a long, labor-intensive process.

The moss was first piled into mounds about 5 feet high and 10 feet around.

These mounds were kept damp until the outer layer of each fiber rotted away, leaving only the tough center strand.

The moss was then hung on fences to dry so that it could be ginned.

The remains of the outer coating were gathered and used for mulch.

The inner fibers were sent to the moss gin, where, by hand, workers removed any twigs, dirt, or other trash from the moss. It was then placed on a belt that carried it to a toothed cylinder that was partly enclosed in a drum.

This cylinder loosened and straightened the moss fibers, which were formed into 150-pound bales ready for shipping.

According to old accounts, a big tree in dense woods would yield up to a ton of green moss, but, since only the inner fibers were used, about 80% of that weight turned into compost and only 20% went to the gin.

It was hard, slow, tedious work and, as one old report tells us, “As in every other kind of business, some of the moss gatherers do well, even make good sums of money; others merely eke out an existence.”

You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.