SPOILAGE OF CRANBERRIES AFTER HARVEST. 
11 
ventilators should be open during cool weather and closed when the 
temperature of the outside air rises above that of the storehouse. 
As already stated, cranberries which are held in the chaff and 
shipped during cold weather are frequently brought from a cold to 
a warm room for sorting. In order that sorters may work com- 
fortably and efficiently the room in which the work is done must 
be at a temperature of at least 15° C. (60° F.), while the fruit in 
storage is often at a much lower temperature. If cool cranberries 
are held in a warmer room long enough for proper screening, their 
temperature is considerably raised, and if they are barreled in this 
room the higher temperature may be maintained long enough to 
affect their keeping quality seriously. As an instance of the injury 
to keeping quality which may result from such treatment, a test 
made in the fall of 1916 may be cited. Equal quantities of Early 
Black cranberries were taken from a barrel which had been kept 
for some time at a temperature of 7° to 10° C. (45° to 50° F.). One 
portion was taken to a warm room, about 24° C. (75° F.), and care- 
fully hand sorted, the process taking in all about 40 minutes, after 
which the sound berries were returned to the original temperature. 
An equal portion was sorted in the cool room. At the end of 10 
days the two lots were again sorted, with the results shown in 
Table Y. 
Table V. — Comparative results of sorting cranberries in warm and in cool 
rooms, in the autumn of 1916. 
Treatment. 
Number of 
berries. 
Berries rotten 10 days 
after sorting. 
• 
Number. 
Per cent. 
Sorted in a warm room 
973 
968 
153 
88 
17 
To avoid loss from this source and from wetting the fruit by con- 
densation from the air, berries should not be sorted in a heated room 
unless necessary. When weather conditions make this imperative 
they should be removed from the warm room as soon as possible 
and should not be packed in the sorting room. Packing in a warm 
room means including in the barrel a quantity of warm air, which 
in a tight package retains its heat for a considerable time. 
Perhaps the most efficient means of overcoming this difficulty is 
one that can be readily arranged where sorting belts are used. This 
method is used by at least two growers, one in Massachusetts and the 
other in New Jersey. The separators and packers are in a large room 
which is kept at the temperature of the fruit, while the belts carry- 
ing the fruit to be sorted pass through a smaller inside room which 
