Newark evening star and Newark advertiser., 1912-11-25
BABIES ARE BUSY
PICKING BERRIES
Mothers and Children Kneel in
Marshes to Get the
Fruit.
TOTS WORK FROM NINE
TO TWELVE HOURS A DAY
Labor Not HeaIthfuI Because
of Dampness in the
Bogs.
Special Correspondence.

yourself to the cranberry sauce for
the Thanksgiving turkey. Here it
ts. red and juicy and quivering like
1elly-with the taint OF childish fin
gers clinging to every crushed berry.
Little Joe Arneo Is years old.
Some sentimental folks might call
him nothing more than a baby"
Some humane investigators found
Joe. his baby fingers Topping off
cranberries in the Delaware swamps
And when that crop was garnered
with his parents, brothers and sisters
he kept moving on northward until
the last of October he was finishing
his period of infant servitude in the
MOSQUITO -harassed bogs of New Jer-
ssy.
The cranberry crop begins to ripen
early in September-just when school
is opening. The season lasts eight
to ten weeks, the berries ripening
first in Delaware and later in New
Jersey and Massachusetts,. During
this time a horde of trained pickers,
composed generally of whole FAM
flies from the grandparents right
down to the babies, moves up
through the bogs. leaving shorn
bushes in their wake. And they are
exploited. investigators declare,
every inch of the way.
To begin with. a majority of these
pickers are children, Shaving in these
ioathsome bogs, when they ought to
be in school. BY actual count this
year there were 1854 children under ID
at work on six bogs, and of this num-
Der 604 were under 10.
And do not deceive yourself that It
Ia "healthful. open-air work" The
cranberry fiourishes only where 1t can
wallow in ooze-in swamp. When-
ever the swamps get the least bit dry
they are flooded by cranberry grow
ers. For the fruit must be fat and
juicy for your Thanksgiving sauce.
Into these wet. soggy marshes each
tall come the pickers-the little chill
dren pickers. For nine to twelve
hours a day they kneei. bent double,
over the low, ground-traifng bushes
--picking, picking. picking. Their
knees sink in the mire and their
hands are scratched with brambles.
About their heads ara wound wet
rags, in an effort to keep off the poi
aonous mosquitoes.
Above the child always stands the
''padrone,' swinging his stick aud
yelling continuously:
"Faster-pick faster! We gotta
clean up this crop before frost comes.
Hurry up! Hurry upi''
T. And the parents. also picking, do
not interfere. For the more their
children pick the more goes into the
family pocketbook. The cold winter
Is coming on.
Then there is the measuring. The
name peck attached to the measure
in which the berries are gathered is
evidently used for convenience. One
of the large growers said:
My peck boxes contain from thir-
teen to fourteen quarters. The pick |
ers would cheat us every time If we
gave them a chance!" Another man
ager said:
1.-THE peck boxes here contain
from thirteen to fourteen quarters.
That's where we get the best of pick
ersp /"
The housing conditions prevailing
on the bogs are terrible. Barracks
and shacks accommodate from one
to "a families. Families of or
persons often live in one room. One
large shack. recently built. contains
"a rooms, each measuring 51k by 6l6
feet. A bunk, extending along the
wall four feet above the floor oc-
cupies half the room. The children
sleep on mattress on the floor un-
derneath the bunk. which Is used by
the grown persons. In some of these
rooms were found eight persons Sleep
ing--four on the bunk and four on
the floors, and all the windows were
nailed shuti About the walls hung +
aoiled clothing and on a table in the
corner was food. Flies swarmed all
over the place and the odor was ter
rible.
But says a manager, I'VE cannot
be expected to give these people an
outing in the pine woods, can we?
This picking cranberries is a business.
The fruit ripens late, and must be
gathered before the frost comes. We
pay what the work is worth. We
have to keep a whip-hand over them
or we lose out. If some of the chill
dren fall Ill. we can't help it. It's
Just case OF the survival of the
fittest!'
So you can figure out for yourself
what our cranberry sauce is actually
costing on the annual day Of peace
and plenty and joy for all!
What One Family Earned Picking
CrRnberrics.
The ID. family employed at one
bog was composed of mother, father
and six children. The following is a
table of their plcFtings:
Average
Age. Per Day.
Father ........-s.......... 80 10 DeckS