The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1890-12-08
A CRANBERRY BOG.
The Picking Time Sort of a Long and
HAPPY Picnic for All.

The Picking Time Sort of a Long and
Happy Picnic for All.
The largest cultivated bog in existence
lies about six miles north of Wareham.
This bog is 100 acres in extent. Other boys
in the vicinity belong to the same manage
ment. These bogs are all as clean as the
tidiest garden. The long and level
stretches. like a carpet strewn with
white and crimson beads. are a most
pleasing and novel sight. Here in
carly September thousand pickers
camp about the swamps, some in temporary
board cabins, but most of them in tents.
The management furnishes the provisions.
which the campers cook for themselves,
ind he rents them the tents. One hundred
and twenty pickers constitute company
which is placed in charge of an overseer,
and each company has bookkeeper. Each
picker ls assigned strip about three feet
is obliged to pick it cloan as he goes. The
pickers are paid by the measure, which is
broad six-Quart pail with ridges marking
the quarts. Ten cents is paid for meas
ure. There is q wide variation in the GUAM
tlty which picker will gather in a day,
slow picker to forty and even fifty for
rapid one, and in extra good picking seven
ty-fve measures have been secured.
Various devices have been contriyed for
Facilitating cranberry picking. The Cape
Cod growers like the Lumbert picker best
This is essentially mousetrap- like boI
with a front lid rising by spiral spring.
The operator thrusts the picker forward in
to the vines, closes the lid by bearing down
with his thumb, and then draws the lmple-
ment backward SO as to pull off the berries
Perhaps fourth of the pickers use the inn
ninnAnf0 (hiIdrpn not 0frpnry ,rk
to handle them continuously, and where the
crop is thin they possess little advantage.
Raking off the berries is rarely practiced in
Cape Cod region. It is a rough operation
and it tears the vines badly. Late in the
fall, if picking has been delayed and frost
is expected or pickers are scarce, the rake is
sometimes used. An ordinary steel garden |
rake is employed. The berries are raked
off the vines, and the bog may then be
flooded and the berries are carried to the
fume. where they are secured.
This picking time is sort of long and |
happy picnic-all the happier for being a |
busy one. The pickers look forward to it |
from year to year and are inyiporated hv
the change and the novelty.
The berries must now be sorted and
screened" If there are no unsound Der |
ries the fruit can be fairly we'll cleaned ~
running it through fanpine-mill; and
some growers find it an advantage to put
all the berries through the mill before they
80 to the hand-screenera A screen is
Slated tray about six feet long and three
and half wide at one end and taperinp to
about six inches at the other, with q side or
border five or six inches high. The spaces
in the bottom between the Stats are about a
fourth of an inch wide. The screen is set
upon sawhorses, and three women stand
upon Q side and handle over the berries, re-
moving the poor ones and the leaves and
sticks and working the good ones toward
the small and open end, where they fall into
q receptacle. The berries are barreled di-
rectly il they are not moist, but If wet thew
are frst spread upon sheets of canvas-oid
sails being fav0rites-and allowed 10 re-
main until thoroughly dry.