78 MASS. EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 402 



It will be noted In Figure 1 , which deals with the Howes variety, that the four 

 very bad years of record, 1914, 1922, 1931, and 1933, all fall In the group having 

 warm May and June and more than average number of days of rain in July and 

 August; and that the three other years in this group all had poor keeping quality. 

 On the other hand, in the group having warm May and June but relatively dry 

 July and August, there are one poor, one fair, and four good years; and In the 

 group having a cool spring but frequent rain during July and August, two poor, 

 one fair, and three good years. The fourth group, that having a cool spring and 

 relatively dry July and August, on the other hand, contains thus far only years 

 having crops of high keeping quality. 



A similar chart. Figure 2, based on the keeping quality of the Early Black 

 variety shows a somewhat larger number of years when quality was above aver- 

 age, but no other difference. 



To determine how often before 1916 there had occurred weather of the type we 

 now believe to be unfavorable to the keeping quality of the cranberry crop, a 

 chart has been prepared (Figure 3) which shows the distribution of the various 

 years as to the weather conditions already discussed ; that is, the temperature in 

 May and June, here expressed as the sum of the monthly mean temperature, and 

 the number of days with .01 inch or more of rain In July and August, based on 

 weather observations made at Middleboro, Massachusetts, during the period 1889 

 to 1915. This weather observation station, while not located near a cranberry 

 bog, was considered sufficiently representative to serve the purpose. Five years, 

 1887, 1889, 1896, 1906, and 1914, fell within the group having weather believed 

 to favor the increase of rot-producing fungi. 



In Figure 3 has also been Included such Information as could be obtained re- 

 garding the keeping quality of the crop of these years. For obvious reasons un- 

 usual abundance of diseases is more likely to be made a matter of record than 

 unusual freedom from disease. That is, a crop of poor quality is more likely to 

 be recorded than one of high quality. Such records of epidemics of fruit rots of 

 cranberries prior to 1912 as could be found are in an early paper by Halsted'^ and 

 in the Proceedings of the American Cranberry Growers' Association, which, al- 

 though its headquarters and most of its officers were in New Jersey, at that time 

 numbered among its members growers from other states and maintained a lively 

 interest in the crops of those states. From the records of this Associat'on it is 

 evident that the crop of 1889 was of exceptionally poor keeping quality in both 

 New Jersey and Massachusetts, much like the crops of the more recent years 

 of^l914 and 1931. From Halsted's paper it appears that the cranberry crop was 

 considered of poor keeping quality in Massachusetts and Connecticut in 1883, 

 1887, and 1888, though apparently not so bad as in 1889. 



Of the five years In this period which fall in the group having warm May and 

 June and wet July and August, two, 1889 and 1914, are known to have had crops 

 of very poor keeping quality, and one, 1887, a crop of poor qualit^^ The other 

 years known to have produced crops of poor quality, 1888, 1912, and 1915, fell 

 in one of the groups having one unfavorable factor. 



It would be of great interest if records could be obtained for the years 1896 

 and 1906, as well as for the two falling close to this group, 1901 and 1905. Such 

 records are not directly available, but what Is known of the crops of those years 

 in New Jersey furnishes indirect evidence that the losses from rot for the years 

 1901 and 1906 at least may have been larger than normal. While the cranberry 

 crops of Massachusetts and New Jersey vary, as regards their keeping quality, 



''Halsted, B. D. Some fungus diseases of the cranberry. N. J. Agr. Expt. Sta. Bui. 64, 40 pp., 

 1889. 



