36 



MASS. EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 447 



It ordinarily is best to pay the scoopers by the hour. They may be hastened 

 with bonuses. Picking by the box is done widely, and wisely, for it attracts the 

 more experienced and efficient scoopers. Fifty cents a bushel box was a common 

 1 947,wage. 



It^never pays to gather by hand the berries that fall to the ground. They 

 always are in poor condition, having been tramped over more or less, and will 

 decay quickly. Such berries are often taken from the water as flotage on the 

 after-picking flood (Fig. 34A). Those so gathered are cleaned of trash quickly 

 and completely while wet, with screens made for the purpose. Most of them are 

 sold to canners. 



Fig. 32. Scooping Cranberries. 

 One man sometimes scoops fifteen barrels in a day. 



The berries as the}' are picked are dumped into bushel boxes on the bog, the 

 boxes having slits in the sides and bottom for ventilation and slats at the ends for 

 handling and for spacing in stacking (Figs 34 B snd 35 A). Many vines gathered 

 by the scoops go into the boxes with the berries. It is widely supposed that the 

 berries store better if the vines and chaff^ remain in the boxes with them, it being 

 thought that they aid ventilation; but the vines have no such effect and un- 

 attached leaves promote decay. Sand picked up in the scooping is very harmful 

 among the stored berries. Stones gathered with the berries bruise them as the> 

 are picked and when they go through the separator, impairing their keeping 

 quality. 



A foreman, thirteen scoopers, and three helpers are needed to pick a 15-acre 

 bog. Two of these men carrj- empt\- boxes to the pickers and take the full boxes 

 from the bog and stack them on the upland for trucking. Special wheelbarrows 

 with pneumatic tires (Figs. 33 A and 34 B) are best for removing the berries 

 from a bog. 



After the crop is harvested, the vines are raked lightly with hand hay rakes. 

 This clears the bog of loose material torn up by the scoops and trains the vines 

 for the next year. There is a market for the rakings as a mulch in nurseries and 



