Cranberry Growing in Burlington County

THE CRANBERRY MEANT PEACE
Long before the first white settlers came into the area, the Lenni-Lenape Indians, a branch of the Algonquins, made their home in the river valleys of what is now South and central New Jersey. The first known harvesters of the cranberry in the state, the Lenni-Lenapes, used the wild red berry for food. The Lenni-Lenape word for the berry was "pakim", meaning "noisy berry"

From these beginnings, "cranberrying" in New Jersey has become a major industry, with approximately 3,500 acres under cultivation. The state ranks third in the nation in cranberry production, behind Massachusetts and Wisconsin, producing about 10 percent of the total national output.

INDIANS "BROT" CRANBERRIES TO EARLY SETTLERS
Providing us with one of the earliest written references to cranberries in New Jersey, one of the first settlers in Burlington, N. J., Mahon Stacy, wrote a letter to his brother in England dated April 26, 1680. It read in part:

"We have from the time called May until Michaelmas a great store of very good wild fruits as strawberries, cranberries and hurtleberries. The cranberries, much like cherries for color and bigness, may be kept until fruit comes in again. An excellent sauce is made of them for venison, turkeys and other great fowl and they are better to make tarts than either gooseberries or cherries. We have them brot to our homes by the Indians in great plenty."

THE WILD BERRY IS TAMED
A Cape Cod, Massachusetts farmer, Henry Hall, is the first known cultivator of cranberries. In 1816, when he started cranberry farming, he noticed that cranberries were larger and juicier where a layer of sand from the dunes blew over the vines. This sand layering technique is still used today.

Cranberry cultivation in New Jersey is believed to have begun In 1840. The State Board of Agriculture report of 1874 states that in 1840 a man by the name of John Webb established a cranberry bog in Ocean County near Cassville, and it is reported that he received $50.00 per barrel for his cranberries. They were bought by ship merchants who sold them to whalers. Cranberries were kept on board ships in barrels of cold water for the sailors to eat. They contained Vitamin C and helped ward off scurvy, which plagued seafarers on long trips.

JUMPING THE GUN DREW A FINE
In the days before cranberries were cultivated, families would gather from miles around to pick the wild berries for their winter tables. But those picking them before they were fully ripe were subject to penalty. In 1789, the New Jersey legislature passed an act which stipulated that anyone picking cranberries before October 10 could be fined 10 shillings. A similar ordinance was recorded by a Cape Cod town clerk in 1773.

HOG WALLOW HAS THE BERRIES
The state's leading cranberry grower is William S. Haines of Chatsworth, who has over 700 acres planted in cranberry vines. Haines' family has a history of cranberry growing. His grandfather, Cap Haines, a Civil War veteran, built cranberry bogs in an area known as The Birches "about 1895," according to Bill.

Two of Cap Haines' sons, Ethelbert and Ralph (Bill's father), developed the extensive Chatsworth property and gave it the colorful name of Hog Wallow. The former wilderness area yields an average of 100 barrels of cranberries per acre, with a total yearly crop of about 70,000 barrels.

WET PICK HARVESTING IS MORE EFFICIENT
First experiments with the wet pick method of harvesting were carried out in 1962, and Haines was a wet pick pioneer in New Jersey. Today, Haines harvests his entire crop by this method, which enables him to harvest 95% of the berries in 60% of the time it formerly took him to dry pick. The shortened harvest time also decreases the danger of crop damage by frost.

To wet pick, floodgates on the reservoir feeding the selected area are opened and water flows into the ditches and over the vines to a depth of about 18 inches, just enough to allow the water reel, which resembles a large egg beater, to work. The rapidly rotating water reels stir up the water with sufficient force to dislodge the ripened-cranberries, which float to the surface in a brilliant red mass of color.

The berries are corralled to one side of the bog where they are removed from the water to waiting trucks. Most of New Jersey's growers truck their berries to the Ocean Spray cooperative in Bordentown for immediate drying, but Haines has his own sorting house because of the great volume of his cranberry operation. In his sorting house, the first step is to remove grass and leaves from the berries. The berries are put on rubber belts. The leaves and grass stick to the rubber, riding up the belts to be dumped. The. berries, meanwhile, roll down to another conveyor which takes them to the dryer.

DRYER DEVELOPED AT RUTGERS
Martin Decker, Jr., Extension Agricultural Engineer at the College of Agriculture, Rutgers, developed the dryer used in New Jersey. It consists of an inclined screen built over air chambers. As the berries pass down this screen, they are bathed first in hot air and then in cool air so they come off the assembly line dry and cool, their quality intact.

Then come a series of steps to ensure that only top quality berries make it to the market. First, the berries go through a separator, or bounce machine, where they have seven chances to bounce over wooden barriers. If they are not firm enough to bounce, they drop down to discard bins.

Berries that pass this test are then screened by inspectors who remove any fruit not up to Ocean Spray standards.

At Haines' sorting house, the screened berries go into a hopper to be weighed out and put into pallet boxes for shipment to Bordentown, where the cooperative takes over for processing and marketing.

NEW JERSEY GROWER INVENTED DRY HARVESTING MACHINE
In the early days, before the advent of harvesting machinery, cranberries were first picked by hand and then by the use of hand scoops which combed the berries from the vines. Development of mechanical pickers began after World War II. Now nearly all of the country's cranberries are brought in by mechanical pickers. The Darlington picker, widely used by growers in all areas where dry harvesting is practiced, was invented by Thomas B. Darlington, a cranberry grower in New Lisbon, New Jersey. Resembling a power lawn mower, it is pushed along the dry bog by a worker. The rotating teeth scoop into the vines and lift off the fruit, which is carried by a conveyor belt to a removable container attached to the handle bars.

NATIONAL COOPERATIVE SERVES CRANBERRY GROWERS
Most of New Jersey's cranberry crop is marketed through Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc., a national growers' cooperative. The Ocean Spray brand of cranberry products was initiated in 1912 in Hanson, Massachusetts, by a private enterprise called Ocean Spray Preserving Company. In 1930, Ocean Spray, A. D. Makepeace Company of Wareham, Mass., and Cranberry Products of New Egypt, New Jersey, joined together to form the national cooperative.

The Ocean Spray plant in Bordentown borders land which once belonged to Joseph Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon I, Emperor of France. Joseph was the King of Spain and Naples during Napoleon's reign, but came to Bordentown for safety after his brother was dethroned.

A historic railroad also serves the plant. Laid by the Camden and Amboy Railroad Company, it carried the first steam train in the state on November 12, 1831. The original locomotive, named John Bull, is now in the U. S. National Museum in Washington, D. C.

CRANBERRIES HAVE SPECIFIC NEEDS
Acid peat soil, a top layer of sand, and an abundant fresh water supply are the three main requirements for successful cranberry cultivation.

To prepare a bog for planting, the area is drained, cleared, leveled, and spread with a layer of sand. Vine cuttings are set in the sand, deep enough to take root in the soil beneath, and in three to five years the bog will bear its first full crop. With proper care it will produce indefinitely. Some bogs are still producing after more than 100 years.

The cranberry harvest begins in New Jersey shortly after Labor Day and extends through October. If frost threatens, the vines must be protected. This is done by flooding the bogs well over the top of the vines. When the water freezes to depth of about 8 inches, the water underneath the protective coating is drained away so the vines can breathe. In the summer the vines must be irrigated during hot, dry spells. Other essentials in cranberry care are fertilizing, pruning of the vines, and weeding.

Burlington, Atlantic, and ocean counties are major cranberry growing areas in New Jersey. The native fruit is also grown in Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester, Middlesex, and Monmouth counties.

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