THE CRANBERRY INDUSTRY 23 



time of occurrence. Injury to cranberry bogs by frost occurred in the spring 

 as early as April 28 and as late as July 4. In the 26-year period, frosts did 

 damage 2 nights in April, 14 nights in May, 4 nights in June, and 2 nights in 

 July, the bulk of the loss occurring from the middle of May to the twentieth 

 of June. The cranberry vines are usually considerably resistant to frost injury 

 till the middle of May, and frost seldom comes on Cape Cod after June 20. 



In the period considered, damaging fall frosts occurred once late in August, 

 12 times in September, and 4 times in October, most of the injury being done 

 from September 10 to 18. Severe frost rarely comes on the Cape before 

 September 10, and by late September the berries are ripe enough to resist 

 frost materially. Also, a large part of the crop is gathered by late September 

 and most of what remains on the bogs can be easily protected. 



Some very interesting facts are apparent from a study of this record when 

 the continuous series for the period 1913 — 1934 is separated into two parts, 

 1913-1923, inclusive, and 1924-1934, inclusive, and a comparison made as to 

 relative production and frost damage. For the period 1913-1923, the cran- 

 berry crop harvested averaged 319,000 barrels per year, with estimated losses 

 from frost injury averaging 79,000 barrels per year when estimated percentage 

 losses are converted to a barrel basis. In other words, during the period 1913- 

 1923 the Massachusetts cranberry crop might easily have averaged about 

 398,000 barrels annually if no loss from frost had occurred, in contrast, 

 harvested production averaged 404,000 barrels per year for the period 1924- 

 1934, and losses were limited to an average of 14,000 barrels per year. On a 

 percentage basis, an average of 19.8 percent of the potential cranberry crop in 

 Massachusetts was lost during the period 1913-1923 because of frost damage., 

 compared with an average loss of only 3.3 percent annually during the years 

 1924-1934. 



The great difference in the amount of damage by frost in these periods is 

 probably due largely to the marked improvement in flowage facilities shown 

 elsewhere in this report and to better attention of the growers to the matter 

 of frost protection. 



MARKETING 



Basic to accurate estimates of cranberry production are the annual records 

 of the movement and utilization of the crop, such as railroad, truck, and boat 

 shipments of fresh fruit and the quantity of berries canned. The most im- 

 portant of these are the railroad shipments, details of which are shown by 

 counties in Table 20 in the appendix. The results of the present survey furnish 

 an indication of the extent to which these records include the entire crop 

 produced. It appears that, in the years included in the survey (1931-1933), 

 about 3 to 4 percent of the crops produced does not appear in the records. 

 The difference can be readily accounted for by: (1) direct shipment by grow- 

 ers to retailers in all cities and to wholesalers in small cities, for available 

 records of truck shipments cover only berries moved to commission merchants 

 and wholesalers in the larger cities; (2) local consumption of cranberries; and 

 (3) occasional out-of-season railroad shipments of which no record would be 

 secured regularly. 



Figure 8 shows the changes in disposal of the Massachusetts cranberry crop 

 from 1919 to 1934. Railroad shipments became steadily less important, de- 

 clining from 93.2 percent in 1919 to 68.7 percent in 1933. Truck shipments, 

 including some boat shipments, on the other hand, increased from 1.3 percent 

 in 1919 to a maximum of 19.6 percent in 1932. Truck and boat shipments 



