Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-10-10
SOON TO Be SAUCE
This is the Season for Har-
vesting Cranberries.
AN ARMY OF PICKERS
BUSY GETTING IN THE CROP BE-
FORE FROST COMES.
Among the Jersey Bogs-Labor Scarce
This Year-A Growing
Industry.
AN ARMY OF PICKERS
Special Correspondence Of The Evening Star.

Special Correspondence Of The Evening Star.
WOODMANSIE, N. J., October o, 1903
Although we do not begin to set our
mouths for the toothsome cranberry until
Thanksgiving. just now the season for its
harvesting is at its height This great
stretch of virgin forest hereabout, cover
ing nearly 1850 square miles and known
as the Jersey pines" was all but doomed
to fall into innocuous desuetude two gener-
atoms ago. About that time some thrifty
agriculturists of the state conceived the
notion of cultivating the wild cranberry
which, long before the advent of the white
man on our shores, had lain neglected in the
cedar swamps of this region. The indus
try smoldered for some years, but now
New Jersey can boast of half again the
acreage in cranberry lands claimed by any
other state in the Union.
Cranberry cultude Is the greatest gamble
in the entire fruit industry. In a success
full year good bog in this region often
nets the grower 90 per cent on his invest
ment. But the very next season he may
lose his entire crop. There are several
stealthy and potent enemies ever plotting to
ambush him in the dark shadows of the
surrounding fastness. The most formidable
of these is Jack Frost. Wherever fall his
hoary tracks the glistening, waXy fruit is
blighted And Dame Nature. as though de-
signing to aid this destructive ogre has so
engineered matters that the cranberry does
not blush into ripeness until just before
the autumnal frosts. Hence armies OF
men, women and children are now invading
this center of it's cultivation, endeavoring
to capture the precious fruit before it can
fall into the clutches of the unsparinS foe.
What the Boys Are Like.
Of fla
nourishing cranberry boys in the world.
To the casual glance of the traveller any of
these would seem to be merely broad nat
ural meadow drained with bitches, the
whole falling with a gentle decline toward
n dam with floodgates. I will state some
details as to how nature was put in har-
ness for the laying out of one of these
great boys A thick, dense cedar swamp
was selected for the site by an ingenious
grower. He purchased the tract at a mere
song, then cut and marketed the cedar.
To what remained he set fire, leaving a
broad meadow studded with charred stumps.
These. if left. would have been obstacles
to successful planting and harvesting. To
pull or blast them out would have been a
heavy expense. The forest area on all
sides was a storehouse for water and gen
tie brooklets trickled into the meadow from
all sides. Across the end of the area to-
ward which this water drained a dixie was
built, with foodgates in the center. In
the winter the gates were closed and the
cleared swamp flooded until the water
reached the level OF the stumps. Here it
was held until a cover of ice six inches
thick had frozen fast to these Instructions.
Then the water was raised beneath the
vast cover of ice, which when thus forced
upward pulled the tightly clutched stumps
up with it, uprooting them that they
foated ashore at the first thaw. Thus
cleared by such a simple yet wholesale hy
draulic system the bog was next leveled.
ditched, drained and made ready for the
planting, which process need only occur
once in 4 favorable region like this.
Planted by Women.
A new bog, like the one in question, is
almost always established by planting cut
tings. Portions of shoots 10 to 10 inches
long and freshly cut from some mature
bog are separated into wisps of from eight
to fifteen separate stems These wisps are
placed in rows upon the sand Women
paid 10 cents n day, walk over the rows and
force each cutting into the sand with a
wedge shaped rod. new bog thus plant
ed will commence to yield well in four or
five years. 1t will never die out if prop
erly cleaned and protected.
After tho last picking and throughout
the weeks of autumn, winter and spring.
in which frostS and freezes are likely to
occur, each cranberry bog is kept flooded
/ he presence OIL water not only protects
the plants and fruit from the frost and Ice
but in the spring retards the bloom until
the danger of late frosts has passed 1t
also shields the plants against the deprc-
dations of certain insects, prevents bliehts
and some injurious fungus diseases But
after the winters ice has adhered to the
vines any inflow of water which may raise
its surface will take the plants with it and
provo disastrous to the bog. Just now, in
the picking season, the careful grower
keeps his weather eye upon his thermome-
ter, and should the mercury drop to a &C.
gree threatening frost the foodgates of the
bog are closed and a film of water made
to creep up over the vines. Such flooding
of course. retards picking, and inasmuch
as the harvesting is being pushed in order
that every bit of fruit may be gathered
before the settled season of frost there is
always hesitation whether the frost be
rlsked III order to hasten the picking 1t is
right here that the successful grower shows
his fine discrimination.
Pickers Scarce.
The labor problem is troubling the cram
berry grower this year more than ever he
fore. There is abundance of work to he
done, but few hands willing to do it. The
native Pine hawker," who in hard times
was from year to year laundering for pick
ing season. to come around, evidently has
been a beneficiary of unprecedented pros
perity this year. He cannot be tempted to
turn out i'll half his usual hordes and L
find that hitherto Industrious yoemen of
the soil, hcwers of wood and drawers of
water, natives of the forest, are not even
ging their sons and daughters to
make their usual pin money this season.
Race suicide not being a weakness among
these foreigners-in fact, the fecundity
among them is amazing-a single house
hold turned out upon the boys can reap
pretty sum in a day. But this season their