SPOILAGE OF CRANBERRIES AFTER HARVEST. 
13 
Table VI. — Shipping tests of cranberries in different types of containers during 
1916 and 1917. 
Year. 
Point of shipment. 
Point of receipt and 
examination. 
Percentage of spoilage. 
Variety. 
In tight 
barrel. 
In venti- 
lated crate. 
Early Black 
1916 
1916 
1916 
li917 
917 
East Wareham, Mass. . 
South Wareham, Mass. 
East Wareham, Mass. . 
do 
Washington, D. C 
Li vermore Falls, Me.. 
Washington, D. C 
Chicago 
38 
23 
21 
22 
13 
29 
Do 
16 
Howe 
11 
Do 
a IS 
Do 
Wareham , Mass 
9 
a Ventilated half-barrel box. 
In this connection it may be noted that cranberries color better in 
well-ventilated containers. 
Careful Handling:. 
DECAY INCEEASED BY BRUISING. 
Bruises caused in harvesting, separating, or sorting cranberries 
form, as already stated, an important cause of increased decay. This 
was strikingly shown by a test made at Whitesbog, N. J., in 1916. 
using Centennial cranberries immediately after harvesting, before 
they had been separated or sorted. Each berry in a 10-pound sample 
was examined critically for the presence of scratches, bruises, or 
other blemishes which were so slight as not to be noticed in a casual 
inspection or picked out by the most careful sorter. Nearly one- 
fourth of the berries were found to be so injured; all of them were 
marketable and, to the inspector, apparently sound; they showed no 
signs of fungous decay. The injured and uninjured berries were 
placed in separate ventilated corrugated paper boxes and left in the 
storage house for two months. At the end of that time they were 
reexamined and the results noted, as shown in Table VII. 
Table VII. — Relation of slight injuries to the keeping quality of cranberries, 
as shown by a test made at Whitesbog, N. J., in 1916. 
Condition before storage. 
Number of 
berries. 
Rotten after being 
stored two months. 
Number. 
Per cent. 
Sound 
2,171 
697 
97 
316 
4.5 
45.3 
Table VII shows that after two months in storage there w T as ten 
times as much rot among the previously bruised berries as in the 
sound ones. Many of these unnoticed injuries occur in each process 
of handling the fruit. This emphasizes the need of care and of 
