On Sodden Cranberry Bogs, Indians Rake in the Trimmings for Turkey

(Wisconsin Rapids, Wis.)--In a few weeks hundreds of barrels of a peculiarly tart little berry that bounces like a rubber ball when thrown will begin to move out from central Wisconsin counties in order that the turkeys of the nation will be properly decorated on Thanksgiving day. What are we talking about? Cranberries, of course! The growing of this fruit is one of the most colorful agricultural industries in the state.

Its brilliant red harvest will pour more than $600,000 into the pockets of lucky Wisconsin growers this fall, while nearly as much more will have been lost to others whose marshes were ravaged by drouth and disease. In the pursuit of this shiny edible some wil have ruined themselves utterly while others take new satisfaction from the increased size of their bank accounts.

About 55,000 barrels will be harvested in the season now drawing to a close. Prices are maintained by one of the most thorough cooperatives in the country. The Wisconsin Cranberry Sales Co., a division of the American Cranberry Exchange, handles 80 per cent of the Wisconsin crop and maintains the price on the other 20 per cent. Growers hope to receive at least $10 a barrel on this year's crop, although the market will not open until Oct. 15, according to Vernon Goldsworthy, manager of the sales company.

Wisconsin's crop is about average, while the crop of the nation as a whole is nearly 25 per cent less than last year, all of which means better prices for berries and more money to the state's growers. New Jersey and Massachusetts, the only other states which grow cranberries, will bear the brunt of the smaller crop.

Nevertheless, many growers in the central counties are facing ruin. The Mather district, which usually produces at least a third of the state's crop, from 20,000 to 25,000 barrels, will not furnish 50 barrels this year. And the drought has not only destroyed the year's harvest but has killed off 500 acres of marsh that took at least 10 painful years to get into production, at a cost never less than $1,000 an acre.

If these marshes are ever to produce again they will have to be scapled and regraded, sluices repaired and new vines purchased and planted. And after this is done the grower must wait at least six or seven years before his vines will return him a profitable harvest.

A marsh may contain from 25 to 100 acres. The land on which the berries are grown must be graded level as a floor. For convenience in leveling the sections are rarely more than an acre or so in extent and are diked off from other plots which may have a different water level, though all are controlled from a central system of canals so that they may be speedily flooded if frost threatens. The dikes themselves are wide enough to allow truck traffic. Each section also has sub-ditches to distribute the water about its surface quickly. The soil itself must be deep black sour peat.

The plants are set out by hand and must be nursed constantly. The runners are cut periodically to permit new plants to get started. After four or five years a few berries can be harvested but the yield is seldom worth while until the sixth or seventh year. Once well planted, however, and protected from drouth or frost, a marsh may last from 60 to 70 years without replanting.

Water is the savior of the marshes. Without water it would be impossible to grow the crop. Water provides a layer of ice to protect the vines in the winter time. Lack of this protection was what winter killed marshes last year. Water kills insects, which are mostly controlled by drowning. Only when insects attack the blossoming plants is spraying necessary because to submerge them at that time might spoil the blossoms. Water protects the vines from frost, for never a month goes by in this central lowland without a killing frost. It provides irrigation for the berries during dry spells. It is even used to control weeds and it retards the blooming period so that the blossoms will not come before the warm months of summer.

Wisconsin's crop this year will average about 30 barrels to the acre though many marshes produce more than that.

The harvest began in Wisconsin this year about Sept. 1. At that time car after car of Indians from all sections of the state converged upon the cranberry area. Some came from the world fair, some even from Canada. At the marshes they set up their own tents, and cared for their own families, which are never complete without three to a dozen dogs. Their tribes are so varied that most of them cannot understand each other except in the English language.

There are scores of Indians on the larger marshes. On the Gaynor marsh in the Cranmoor district there were as many as 185 blanketed and shawled women dry picking berries at one time this year. Their camps are a bustle of chatter, smoke, laughter, and the barking of countless dogs. Year-old babies are left by their working mothers with only a piece of cloth spread across three crossed sticks to shield them from the autumn sun.

On some marshes Indian families live all the year around, assisting in the routine work that fills the time between the busy harvest periods. Some owners are glad to give them free living space in return for a few odd jobs. On one Juneau county marsh Indians last winter trapped more than 300 muskrats which had migrated from a nearby fur farm where the water table had fallen too low. If unmolested these little rodents would have honeycombed the dikes with their burrows until the dike gave way, permitting priceless water to escape.

In the task of harvesting the labors of the men and women are entirely different. The men, hip booted, rake the marshes, proceeding in a line from one end of the section to the other. The rake is like a scoop with projecting teeth and is swung like a cradle. The men wade through the water which comes to the top of the vines, eight inches high, and with swinging rakes clean the vines of their crimson cargo. The teeth of the rake or scoop are set far enough apart to permit the vines to pass between them, but the berries are stripped off and fall into the container back of the teeth. Berries knocked from the vine but not taken into the scoop float to the surface where they are easily gathered. Berries in some sections of the marsh mature earlier than others, permitting the workers to begin one section as soon as another is finished. When the rakes are filled they are emptied into wooden crates floating in the water, and as these are also filled they are piled on the dike where they stay until dry and are then taken away in trucks.

The bad berries are eliminated by an ingenious device which takes advantage of their bounce. The machine tosses them against a slanted board and the good ones bounce back to be kept, while the bad ones drop out.

Dry picking is done by hand, and only by the women and children. Here the rate of pay is fixed by the quantity picked instead of on a daily wage scale as with the men, and an overseer is consequently necessary to see that the vines are stripped clean and not just the easily picked berries taken. Dry picking is done only on new marshes where the rakes of the wet pickers would ruin many young vines.

The harvest itself lasts only about six weeks, although a few marshes will linger through the middle of October.