876 



CRANBERRY 



CRANBERRY 



1092. The obovoid or 

 bell-shaped form of cran- 

 berry. (X 1 A) 



tion it is received on the cloth and slides down into 

 the box placed for the good berries without more 

 bouncing. The rotten berries having lost their elas- 

 ticity are not able to bounce over the cloth partition 

 that separates the good from the bad. With berries 

 that are nearly spherical and not too juicy this machine 

 works very well, provided there are no frozen berries 



to be taken out. 

 Berries damaged by 

 frost are even more 

 elastic than sound 

 ones and will all go into the 

 box for good fruit. Neither 

 will the bounce machines work 

 well with long or oval berries; 

 when these strike on their 

 pointed ends they fail to 

 bounce and there is always a 

 considerable percentage of 

 sound fruit found in the refuse 

 box. As there may be any- 

 where from ten to thirty or 

 more steps, it is easily under- 

 stood that berries going over these machines are not 

 in the best possible condition for long keeping after 

 they are put on the market. Some varieties of berries 

 which are very juicy and tender can not be put 

 through these machines at all as the steps get so sticky 

 with the juice that the berries will not bounce. 



In 1903, a machine was patented by Joseph J. 

 White, which avoids the defects of the bounce ma- 

 chines. This has since been put on the market and its 

 use is spreading among the more careful packers of 

 Massachusetts and New Jersey, but the more compli- 

 cated machinery and greater cost have prevented its 

 adoption by other growers. This machine is provided 

 with a hopper into which the cranberries are emptied 

 through a screen which removes the coarser grass and 

 vines; from the hopper the berries are fed, single file, 

 to screw conveyors on which they are held by trough- 

 like guards. These guards do not quite touch the 

 screw, leaving a crack through which the remaining 

 bits of grass, vines and dried berries are dropped into 

 a box placed below to receive them. 



The screw conveyor passes the berries over a series 

 of selecting plates made of some resilient material, 

 the best found so far being the selected spruce wood 

 prepared for piano sounding-boards. These plates are 

 tapped by small hammers placed beneath, the strength 

 of the blow being regulated by a thumb-screw. The 

 sound berries respond to this gentle tapping by jump- 

 ing off the screw conveyor and falling on an endless 

 belt a few inches below, which delivers all the sound 

 fruit at one end of the machine. The rotten berries 

 do not respond to the tapping of the selecting plates 

 and are carried to the ends of the screw conveyors 

 where they drop in the same box under the machine 

 that receives the fine grass and the like. Frozen ber- 

 ries are removed by this machine nearly as well as 



rotten ones and the 

 shape of the berries is of 

 no importance, while the 

 berries only drop twice, 

 a few inches each time, 

 and are in much better 

 condition for long keep- 

 ing than those that go 

 over the bounce ma- 

 chines. After the berries 

 have been cleaned by 

 machine it is customary 

 to place them on tables 

 where women remove 

 any defective berries 



1093. The globular or cherry- that may have been 

 shaped cranberry. ( X Yd missed by the machines. 



Marketing; yield. 



Most cranberries are marketed in barrels holding 

 about 100 quarts; a few are marketed in crates three 

 of which fill a barrel. Some dealers prefer to buy 

 cranberries "in the chaff," that is, just as they come 

 from the bogs without having been run through any 

 machine. Berries sold in this way are always packed 

 in crates and are cleaned by the dealer, a few crates 

 at a time, as his trade calls for them; they keep better 

 than those that have been cleaned before being shipped. 



Evaporated cranberries have been on the market for 

 a number, of years and are excellent, there being less 

 difference between the sauce made from them and from 

 fresh fruit than is the case with most kinds of fruit. 



From the cranberry centers, the fruit is shipped in 

 carload lots to the large cities of the United States, 

 and from these distributed to the surrounding towns. 

 There is also a small but steadily growing export trade. 



A bog in good bearing should yield fifty barrels to 

 the acre, but as many as 200 barrels have been secured. 



In 1895 cooperative selling of cranberries was inau- 

 gurated by some of the New Jersey growers, who 

 organized the Growers' Cranberry Co., with Joseph J. 

 White as president and Theodore Budd as vice-presi- 

 dent. This company was joined by a number of large 

 New England growers and, though handling only 25 

 per cent of the crop, prospered greatly. Later, A. U. 

 Chaney organized another cooperative selling company. 

 These two companies consolidated in 1910, forming the 

 American Cranberry Exchange, with George W. Briggs, 

 of Massachusetts, as president. The Exchange controls 

 about 50 per cent of the crop of the country and has 

 been remarkably successful in securing good prices for 

 its members while keeping the retail price as low as 

 during the years of fiercest competition. 



History. 



Cranberry-culture began about a century ago in 

 Massachusetts on the Cape Cod Peninsula. William 

 Kenrick, writing in 1832 in the "Orchardist," says that 

 "Capt. Henry Hall, of Barnstable, has cultivated the 

 cranberry twenty years;" "Mr. F. A. Hayden, of Lin- 

 coln, Massachusetts, is stated to have gathered from 

 his farm in 1830, 400 bushels of cranberries, which 

 brought him in Boston market $600." In the second 

 and subsequent editions, Kenrick makes the figure 

 $400. It is not said whether Hayden's berries were 

 wild or cultivated. At the present day, with all the 

 increase in production, 

 prices are higher than 

 those received by Hay- 

 den. In the third (1841) 

 and subsequent editions, 

 it is said that "an acre 

 of cranberries in full 



bearing will produce over 1094. Cranberry scoop, sometimes 

 200 bushels; and the used in picking the berries, 

 fruit generally sells, in 



the markets of Boston, for $1.50 per bushel, and much 

 higher than in former years." It was as late as 1850, 

 however, that cranberry-culture gained much promi- 

 nence. It was in 1856 that the first treatise appeared: 

 B. Eastwood's "Complete Manual for the Cultivation 

 of the Cranberry." About 1845, cranberry-culture 

 began to establish itself in New Jersey. 



The culture of cranberries began in Nova Scotia 

 about thirty years ago. The first attempt consisted 

 in improving some of the patches of wild berries found 

 growing around the central district of the Annapolis 

 Valley. Gradually the idea was entertained of plant- 

 ing new areas, and as this proved successful the new 

 industry was soon fairly established. Farmers in the 

 vicinity of Auburn soon took up the industry, and in 

 the fall of 1892 the first carload of cranberries was 

 shipped to Montreal. Since then, Nova Scotia cran- " 

 berries have met with a ready sale throughout Canada. 



