GATHERING AND SHIPPING THE CROP. 31 



and fifty to two hundred pickers, and take the picking by 

 contract. The berries are picked into six-quart pails, or 

 measures, which are required to be heaped up to allow 

 for the poor berries, the stems and leaves. Each picker, 

 as has been stated, is allotted a number, and during the 

 picking season, is designated, not by name, but by num- 

 ber. The pickers are usually paid ten cents per meas- 

 ure of six quarts ; but in some places they are paid by 

 the bushel ; in such cases forty cents per bushel is the 

 usual price. Sometimes pickers are paid by the pound. 

 This is not usual, however. Each gang of fifiy 

 pickers, has an overseer, whose duty it is to see that the 

 hands do their work well, pick clean, and do not tear 

 the vines. 



I have spoken of the account-book kept by the over- 

 seer ; this book is made specially for cranberry growers, 

 by stationers in Boston, Mass. It is a great convenience, 

 and was first made at my suggestion. The book has an 

 index of numbers upon its pages, of from one to two 

 hnndred, instead of being lettered from separately in an 

 index, A to Z, as is usual. The book is about sixteen 

 inches long, five inches wide, and is ruled in spaces 

 of about fifty lines to the page. Every picker's name 

 is written at the top of one of these pages, so that 

 when a picker brings in a pail to be emptied, and calls 

 out the number, the overseer, or account keeper, who is 

 located at some convenient station on the bog, at a glance 

 finds the number in the index, and turns to the page bear- 

 ing that number, and gives the credit to the proper 

 party, thus avoiding much delay, and lessening the lia- 

 bility to mistakes. A measure can be filled by a smart 

 picker in fifteen minutes. A gang of eighty pickers (no 

 unusual number), can in exceptionally good picking, pick 

 five barrels, Massachusetts standard measure, in fifteen 

 minutes, or twenty barrels an hour, at which rate there 

 must be an average of a credit to bo given the pickers by 



