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WISCONSIN CRANBERRY GROWERS' ASSOCIATION 25
In Cape Cod they harvest the berries on their knees, and cannot be
expected to work on their knees when the vines are so wet. Many of
the Blacks weren't harvested until late in October, and they should
have been harvested in September. Those rains also induced the Late
Howes to continue to grow and not ripen. The Howes didn't get
overly ripe, but they were overly large, and this increased the crop.
They are of excellent quality, and not over-ripe.
The Late Howes could not be marketed to any extent as long as
there were other berries on the market that were a little cheaper.
The price of cranberries was five and ten cents, or three for a quar-
ter, and sometimes less, and consequently in every market they wanted
something they could retail for ten cents or less. They didn't want
extra fancy berries, that could retail for eleven or twelve cents, and
they had to compete with the ten cent berries. Therefore we could
not sell the fancy berries while the Blacks hung around, and they
hung around until Thanksgiving. Comparatively few berries went or
the market for Thanksgiving other than Blacks, although there were
a few of the Native Jersey and Wisconsin berries. We had mostly
Howes left, and half of the Native Jerseys. We have had a tremen-
dous sale of Howes for December since there was nothing else to be
had. I presume three-fourths of the Howes are now sold, and they
are still selling. Whether consumers will buy Howes at two for a
quarter, is a question yet to be answered. The markets will be well
supplied with Howes that cost $8.00 at the shipping point, or $9.00
delivered, in the Middle West. That means they will have to retail
at 15¢, or two for 25¢, whereas they have been retailing for 10¢
or
less. Whether they will go into consumption for the Christmas holi-
day market and clean up satisfactorily, none of us know. The trade
has bought more liberally for the Holiday season because they had such
a good clean up at Thanksgiving time. Many of the dealers expected
an advance in prices, and probably still expect it. It is all a question
of what consumer response will be. All of us are uneasy,-afraid
the sudden advance from ten to fifteen cents in price will retard con-
siderable consumption. If it doesn't, we will have few enough
Howes on the growers' hands to have a nice finish on the price.
Usually we have much higher or much lower prices after the Holi-
days. I think that considering the crop that you had, and consider-
ing that thirty-seven per cent of the total production was over-ripe
Early Blacks, cranberry growers got off very well, compared with anv
other commodity on the market this year. They got off, as a whole,
better than the apple and the citrus fruit growers. I feel encouraged
as to the future. We probably won't get as large a crop of Blacks
for some time. We had floods in New Jersey, and continuous rains
on Cape Cod, that lasted so long they thought they would never stop.
while you people here had a drought. I wish we could equalize it. I
am sure the Eastern growers would have liked to have equalized it.
What makes the cranberry industry so interesting is that we never
have two years alike. We never can say "We are going to do it dif-
ferent next year", because if we do we will probably be just wrong.
Every year is different, and we have tried to meet conditions as we
find them. That is what keeps us happy as cranberry growers and
cranberry salesmen.
I am glad to have been back with you again.