2 BULLETIN 714, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
ticed that a retailer who has unsound and unattractive fruit in his 
store has blocked his sale of cranberries." As the trade becomes more 
and more critical, not only of cranberries but of other fruits, the 
time is rapidly approaching when (2, p. 30) " growers must recognize 
the absolute necessity of producing fruit that will be sound when it 
goes before the consumer." 
PLAN OF THE PRESENT WORK. 
The senior writer has carried on investigations of the diseases of 
cranberries since 1901. During the past two years (1916 and 1917), 
however, the problem has been taken up with special reference to the 
losses which occur after picking. Field work and storage experi- 
ments have been carried on in Massachusetts and New Jersey; labora- 
tory studies of material shipped from these areas and from Wiscon- 
sin, Michigan, Oregon, Maine, and West Virginia have been made at 
Washington, D. C. ; fruit has been inspected and studied in most of 
the important markets east of the Mississippi Kiver ; and experimen- 
tal shipments have been made from cranberry-growing centers to 
Washington. New York, and Chicago. So far as practicable, the 
field work in New Jersey and in Massachusetts has been conducted 
along similar lines, in order to avoid errors due to peculiar local con- 
ditions. 
The investigations in Massachusetts have been carried on in co- 
operation with the Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Station, 
the work at the State bog at East Wareham being in charge of Dr. 
H. J. Franklin (4, 5). Prof. F. W. Morse, of the experiment sta- 
tion, has also taken up certain important phases of cranberry respi- 
ration in relation to spoilage. While the investigations are not yet 
complete, the present paper aims to present the more important re- 
sults and the conclusions thus far obtained in order that they may 
be immediately available to cranberry growers. 
CAUSES OF CRANBERRY SPOILAGE. 
The spoilage of cranberries is due in general to one or more of the 
following causes : Freezing, insect work, bruising, drying out, natural 
ripening processes, fungous rots, and smothering. The writers pro- 
pose to employ the term smothering to designate the pathological 
conditions produced in fruits by sufficient interference with respira- 
tion, whatever the cause of this interference. 
As the cause of freezing and the means of its prevention are well 
understood and the work of insects is outside the province of this 
paper, these two causes of spoilage will not be discussed. 
BRUISING. 
Loss due to bruising is by no means confined to actual crushing of 
berries by careless handling or spilling in sorting or packing houses, 
