Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1909-09-16
THE CRANBERRY
INDUSTRY
For a Days Outing There is no
Place Equal in Interest as
the Wisconsin Cranberry
Marsh.

Kind reader let us take a little
trip together. The early fall is up
on us, the cranberry season is al
its best, and the Jacob Searles marsh
is one of the best resorts this side
Of Minocqua.
Life in a cranberry settlement is
like no other in the agricultural
world. 1t is intense, progressive
and intelligent. Per capita, wealth
is at it's highest point
There are three great pictures of
the cranberry one that was, one that
is, and one that is to be. At no
place on the face of the earth so
far as known, was the wild cranber-
ry grown in as great abundance as
regular crop, and as good flavor as
in Northern Wisconsin before the
coming of the white man, The ga
thering of the wild cranberries thru
Michigan and Wisconsin was done
almost entirely by the Indians, and
the noble red man plays no small
part in the gathering of the cultivated
crop of the present day.
The cranberry grower himself is
of necessity broad intelligent, pro-
gressive type of a man, and above
all a worker. The first men to en-
gage in this business in Wisconsin
were not much wiser than the ex-
plorers, the trappers and the mission
aries who preceded them. Not the
least among the resources of the Wis
consin Valley is that of the cranber-
ry industry. It's history reads some
thing like fiction. 1t produces about
twenty-five thousand barrels a year,
the state fOrty-five thousand The
entire crop of this country 10000
barrels. Today, the best marshes
are worth from $4,000 to 100000
per acre. Not many years ago this
land was purchased for back taxes
at SO cents per acre. Nowhere on
the American continent, except in
the choicest irrigated district, has
wild and worthless land been taken
from the state Of nature and devel-
oped and made so valuable as the
cranberry marshes of the Wisconsin
Valley. Today, this country has all
the modern improvements, good roads
and every cranberry grower has the
telephone and the free rural deliv-
cry at his door.
For days outing the cranberry
marsh at this season of the year has
no equal. The long line of pickers
composed Of men, women, and child
rem is not exciting but interesting.
Seventy pickers in a row take a
strip three hundred feet wide and
pick from two to four bushels day
each. They board themselves and
and receive so cents per bushel The
seventy hackers are composed of
strong able bodied men largely in the
prime of life, who gather from ten
to fifteen bushels per day each, and
receive from $500 to 1925 and board.
1t costs about $3.50 to pick and
pack a barrel of cranberries. From
ten to twenty men are employed to
care for the berries after they are
picked
The boarding of eighty or ninety
hungry men is no small matter. Mrs.
Searles has two excellent helpers,
and the meal at the long row of ia
bles, makes one wish he was cram
berry picker. Kruger e Warner Co.
are running a coy little store at
this point. Mr. Kruger is giving it
his personal attention, and he seems
to have the happy faculty of not only
making himself useful and pleasant
but agreeable.
One of the interesting features
of the social life here is a dance
held every evening from eight to
ten, Mr. Searles provides them with
a dance hall and two paid musicians,
so these workers put in from two
to three weeks here, getting excellent
! board, good wages and seemingly a
pleasant outing.
Jacob Searles has already gathered
one thousand barrels of cranberries,
and is expecting from $500 to 5000
| barrels. While the loss by frost was
about 80 per cent on many marshes
Mr.. Searles will harvest a full crop.
The marketing of the cranberry is
all the important part, it is what
has given the grower much trouble il
the past. At present the entire cram
berry crop of Massachusetts,, New
Jersey, and Wisconsin are marketed
by one man, or one company in New
York, the price will not BE- deter
mined until the last berry is picked
but it will be placed at such a figure
that the cranberries will be distribut-