Fruits, Vegetables and General Interests. 



19 



crop of this year at Berlin, Wis., was destroyed by the frost 

 of the morning of July 8. The damage in this county from 

 the same cause amounts to about 15 per cent, of the crop. 

 But the most serious part is the damage done to the crop of 

 next year. In many places where the blossom was not injured 

 by the frost, and in all cases where it was injured, the terminal 

 bud of the upright which lies above the fruit was killed. It is 

 this that matures the fruit-bud for next year's crop, and it is The 

 now too far along in the season for the plant to produce in its cranberry 

 stead a lateral upright that will mature a fruit-bud. The sea- 

 son is on the whole a little late, and unless we have a fair 

 amount of moist, warm weather during the next four weeks, 

 the crop will be more liable than usual to be caught by the 

 early fall frosts. For, notwithstanding the large amount of 

 money that has been expended in ditches and dams, less than 

 one-tenth of the crop is in a position to be protected from the 

 frosts." 



The October crop-report of the American Cranberry Growers' 

 Association makes the following estimates :* 



New England, 420,000 bushels, a gain of 22 per cent, over 1890. 

 New Jersey, 244,000 bushels, a gain of 12 per cent. 

 The West, 38,250 bushels, a loss of 83 per cent. 



The report makes the following comment upon the market : 

 "The market opened on Cape Cod with plenty of buyers, at 

 prices ranging from $6 to $7 per barrel. New Jersey 

 also, against the usual custom, came in for a share, and a num- 

 ber of carloads of fruit, of uncertain quality, found purchas- 

 ers at $1.75 to $2 per crate. The unusually hot weather 

 of September was unfavorable for the consumption of cran- 

 berries by the usual process, but extremely favorable for their 

 consumption by nature's process. The Early Blacks of the 

 Cape and the early picked Jerseys vanished before the de- 

 stroyer heat, and the result was a great loss to dealers who 

 had stocked up so liberally. The upshot was a complete 

 ' slump' in the market. This experience over, the market re- 

 sumed on a new and extremely conservative basis. The bulk 



*Since the above was in type, the following: final estimate of the crop of 1891 has been 

 received from the secretary of the Cranberry Growers' Association : 



New England 480,000 bushels. 



New Jersey 244,000 " 



The West 40,000 " 



764,000 



