Show abu bayberries time wa when the crop was eager ly harvested years ago when the llast frosts hail come connecticut wont out to pick the hunches of to makr the pale green wax candles which when burning gave out the aromatic smell of the leaves that tho pickers crushed in pulling off we no longer pick bayberries for company candles for the winter time except a few romantic souls who gather berries enough to make a candle on two for old memories a few faddists faddis ts who want to try to make bayberry candles by some discovery or other in a magazine and some stanch old new englanders who love to get out n tho pastures on n crisp fall day these are all who gather abo now left to themselves the clumps of bushes have spread out aud la some cases overrun whole pastures in some parts of connecticut the bushes have grown very tall in bran ford on the coast there are almost bayberry trees as many can bo found growing along the highways ten feet tall and some even taller these must be very old youcan not help wondering bow many crops have been picked off them in years ast As early as the town records show that the gathering of bayberries on the highways and common was forbidden before sept 15 A fine of 10 shillings for each violation was the penalty it appears that the wax from the berries was used in making a blacking and a salve and that bayberry wax continued an article of trade in branford down to the last fifty years human nature being about fhe same one century to another there was probably in 1717 a great complaining of people who picked the berries before they were half ripe or got up nga before anybody else bad a chance fienco the regulation and the fine but what a breathless hurried bayberry picking it must have been tho morning of sept 15 hartford courant |