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Some of the berries, especially in Massachusetts, are cleaned and packed on the bog as they are picked, and sent directly to market, but this immediate packing tends to poor keeping. Most cranberries, after picking, are put in boxes which are packed in well - ventilated storehouses. Here they are kept from a few days to several months and the cleaning and packing for market is done immediately before they are shipped.
Some of the berries, especially in Massachusetts, are cleaned and packed on the bog as they are picked, and sent directly to market, but this immediate packing tends to poor keeping. Most cranberries, after picking, are put in boxes which are packed in well - ventilated storehouses. Here they are kept from a few days to several months and the cleaning and packing for market is done immediately before they are shipped.
The machine which has been the standard for cleaning cranberries for many years is provided with a fan to blow away all grass, pieces of vine, dried-up berries or anything of like nature that may have gotten in the bernes while being picked. The berries are then allowed to roll down a series of steps; those that are sound are elastic and will bounce like little rubber balls. There are bands of cloth stretched above the steps in such a way that when a berry bounces in the right direc
The machine which has been the standard for cleaning cranberries for many years is provided with a fan to blow away all grass, pieces of vine, dried-up berries or anything of like nature that may have gotten in the bernes while being picked. The berries are then allowed to roll down a series of steps; those that are sound are elastic and will bounce like little rubber balls. There are bands of cloth stretched above the steps in such a way that when a berry bounces in the right direction it is received on the cloth and slides down into the box placed for the good berries without more bouncing. The rotten berries having lost their elasticity are not able to bounce over the cloth partition that separates the good from the bad. With berries that are nearly spherical and not too juicy this machine works very well, provided there are no frozen berries to be taken out. Berries damaged by frost are even more elastic than sound ones and will all go into the box for good fruit. Neither will the bounce machines work well with long or oval berries; when these strike on their pointed ends they fail to bounce and there is always a considerable percentage of sound fruit found in the refuse box. As there may be anywhere from ten to thirty or more steps, it is easily understood that berries going over these machines are not in the best possible condition for long keeping after they are put on the market. Some varieties of Berries which are very juicy and tender cannot be put through these machines at all as the steps get so sticky with the juice that the berries will not bounce.
In 1903, a machine was patented by Joseph J. White, which avoids the defects of the bounce machines. This has since been put on the market and its use is spreading among the more careful packers of * ii"' . * ««.*' ' ew Jersey, but the more compli- 1 -.! greater cost have prevented ita . yers. This machine is provided .» . si. iich the cranberries are emptied th:-": . ' "'hi ' i-h removes the coarser grass and \>- i: !ii- r the berries are fed, single file,r1- i1 .1. which they are held by trough like guards. These guards do not quite touch the screw, leaving a crack through which the remaining bite of grass, vines and dried berries are dropped into a box placed below to receive them.
The screw conveyor passes the berries over a series of selecting plates made of some resilient material, the best found so far being the selected spruce wood prepared for piano sounding-boards. These plates are tapped by small hammers placed beneath, the strength of the blow being regulated by a thumb-screw. The sound berries respond to this gentle tapping by jumping off the screw conveyor and falling on an endless belt a few inches below, which delivers all the sound fruit at one end of the machine. The rotten berries do not respond to the tapping of the selecting plates and are carried to the ends of the screw conveyors where they drop in the same box under the machine that receives the fine grass and the like. Frozen berries are removed by this machine nearly as well as rotten ones and the shape of the berries is of no importance, while the berries only drop twice, a few inches each time, and are in much better condition for long keeping than those that go over the bounce machines. After the berries have been cleaned by machine it is customary to place them on tables where women remove any defective berries that may have been shaped cranberry. (x M) missed by the machines.
Marketing; yield.
Most cranberries are marketed in barrels holding- about 100 quarts; a few are marketed in crates three of which fill a barrel. Some dealers prefer to buy cranberries "in the chaff," that is, just as they come from the bogs without having been run through any machine. Berries sold in this way are always packed in crates and are cleaned by the dealer, a few crates at a time, as his trade calls for them; they keep better than those that have been cleaned before being shipped.
Evaporated cranberries have been on the market for a number of years and are excellent, there being less difference between the sauce made from them and from fresh fruit than is the case with most kinds of fruit.
From the cranberry centers, the fruit is shipped in carload lots to the large cities of the United States, and from these distributed to the surrounding towns. There is also a small but steadily growing export trade.
A bog in good bearing should yield fifty barrels to the acre, but as many as 200 barrels have been secured.
In 1895 cooperative selling of cranberries was inaugurated by some of the New Jersey growers, who organized the Growers' Cranberry Co., with Joseph J. White as president and Theodore Budd as vice-president. This company was joined by a number of large New England growers and, though handling only 25 per cent of the crop, prospered greatly. Later, A. U. Chaney organized another cooperative selling company. These two companies consolidated in 1910, forming the American Cranberry Exchange, with George W. Briggs, of Massachusetts, as president. The Exchange controls about 50 per cent of the crop of the country and has been remarkably successful in securing good prices for its members while keeping the retail price as low as during the years of fiercest competition.
History.
Cranberry-culture began about a century ago in Massachusetts on the Cape Cod Peninsula. William Kenrick, writing in 1832 in the "Orchardist," says that "Capt. Henry Hall, of Barnstable, has cultivated the cranberry twenty years;" "Mr. F. A. Hayden, of Lincoln, Massachusetts, is stated to have gathered from his farm in 1830, 400 bushels of cranberries, which brought him in Boston market $600." In the second and subsequent editions, Kenrick makes the figure $400. It is not said whether Hayden's berries were wild or cultivated. At the present day, with all the increase in production, prices are higher than those received by Hay- den. In the third (1841) and subsequent editions, it is said that "an acre of cranberries in full bearing will produce over 200 bushels; and the fruit generally sells, in the markets of Boston, for $1.50 per bushel, and much higher than in former years." It was as late as 1850, however, that cranberry-culture gained much prominence. It was in 1856 that the first treatise appeared: B. Eastwood's "Complete Manual for the Cultivation of the Cranberry." About 1845, cranberry-culture began to establish itself in New Jersey.
The culture of cranberries began in Nova Scotia about thirty years ago. The first attempt consisted in improving some of the patches of wild berries found growing around the central district of the Annapolis Valley. Gradually the idea was entertained of planting new areas, and as this proved successful the new industry was soon fairly established. Farmers in the vicinity of Auburn soon took up the industry, and in the fall of 1892 the first carload of cranberries was shipped to Montreal. Since then, Nova Scotia cranberries have met with a ready sale throughout Canada.
Literature.
The standard books on the cultivation of cranberries are Webb's "Cape Cod Cranberries," and "Cranberry- Culture," by Joseph J. White; these are old books and in many respects out-of-date. The best literature on the subject is to be found in the various publications of the United States Department of Agriculture, the bulletins of the agricultural experiment stations of New Jersey, Wisconsin and Massachusetts, the proceedings of the American Cranberry Growers' Association which have been published biennially since 1880. the reports of the Cape Cod Cranberry Growers Association, and the reports of the Wisconsin State Cranberry Growers' Association. Elizabeth C. White.
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