The Lancaster ledger. [volume] (Lancaster, S.C.) 1852-1905, 1893-12-13
A CRANBERRY BOG.
SOMETHING ABOUT THE BEE-
RIIcS AND THE PICKERS.
Cranberrics i'm New Jersey and on
Cape Cod-Jcrscy Bo2s Are
Often Free to All Corners
'Cranberry" Poultices.

ing thom, and 1t IL tho only thing to
eat that that desert was ever known to
produce.
Jersey grows cranberries, too, and
tho picking business is more pictur-
esque than on the Cape. There the
"homo folks" manage, by turning all
the men, women and children into the
bogs, to handle the crop, and, rs
everybody knows, there is nothing ex-
citing about the native Cape Coder.
He is a suitable subject for Miss Will
kins's pen, but hardly for Rider Hag-
CARDS.
But in Jersey, around Cranberry
Centre and Pine Ridge, the picking is
done by a wild and vagrant class, many
of whom manage to get along with no
visible means of support all the year
till the time comes that they can work
in the hop fields or the cranberry bogs.
The worst of the work is the stoop-
ing. Many of tho men have their
knees capped with leather, and move
about more or less without getting up.
About II third of the pickers AT Pine
Ridge and thercabout are women, and
il is noticeable that they are in every
way less systematic at their work than
the men; they stoop, they bend to
their knees, they sit down on the
ground for u change.
They pick as fast as the men first
part of the day." said the buyer, who,
in shed at the edge of the bog was
measuring fruit, ''but they give out
sooner. But they como out of the
season with more money than the men,
for they don't throw it away so fast. ."
Many of the pickers here are col
ored people, and many are Italians,
and with both gambling is great pas.
time. They stop during the day to
gamble with their "tickets" These
tickets are given them instead of
money by the buyer and are redeem
able once week.
The actual picking is done in pals
or baskets slung around the neck !;
these are cmpticd rs filled into big,
fiat, wooden box that can be swung
comfortably on the back. When it is
filled it is slung there, and SO carried
to the buyers shed. A bushel of
berries liz II small load and bushel
and half n good-sized one.
In most of this region the cranberry
is still regarded as sent by the grace
Of God, one man having ms good a
right to it us another. Pickers who,
under this sort of squatter sovereign.
ty, own their berries, get this fall
fifty cents bushel for them. Some of
the men can pick three bushels and
moro in n day. But many of them
shorten their labors by agame of seven
up in the woods after they have taken
in couple of bushels.
Many of the colored people live in
cabins around the bog-lands, and
some of them board other pickers dur
ing the cranberry season-$2. so a
week is a popular price.
In other parts of Jersey the bogs
and their product are treated rs pri-
vate property, and then the picking is
done by children and neighbors mainly.
There is no such chance to make
money rs the wild bogs afford, and
strangers are not drawn to tho work.
Things are managed on this plan, too,
Mt Cape Cod. But, though on the
Cape hired laborers picking in private
bogs, so to speak, get only twenty five
cents bushel, the discrepancy is not
so great rs it seems. Picking can be
done faster in these private bogs the
plants are in better condition, largely
because of more careful handling in
previous picking seasons, they grow
more thickly, and the culture that is
bestowed upon them results in bigger
berries and more of them.
81 tell YOU" said West street mer-
chant, who goes into cranberries deep,
as he puts it, and who visited Cape
Cod in the beginning of the season to
examine the crop, "thcre isn't a pret-
tier sight than some of those cultiva-
ted bogs down there, after the berries
are ripe. You see the bushes, vines
they call them mostly there, and they
are neither bushes nor vines, as mat
ter of fact--well, whatever you call
them, they amt big enough, and
haven't leaves enough on it to hide the
berries, and they just show up red and
bright in the sun, over miles Of coun-
try, till it's prottier than any flowers.
The girls pick down there, and some
times they'll put some berries on the
stem in their dresses or in their hair,
and when they are good looking il
looks nice, / tell you. You've seen
those immense big cranberries in mar
a kL,.