Jersey Shore Magazine

J e r s e y s h o r e • F A L L / H O L I D A Y 2 0 1 6 64 JERSEY SHORE PLACES CRAZY FOR CRANBERRIES, continued from page 63 Elizabeth became interested in the possibilities of growing wild blueber- ries as a crop, which no one had yet cultivated with any success. Then, in 1910, she learned of Dr. Frederick Coville's work with blueberries and invited him to Whitesbog. Working with local "pine people," as they were known, they gathered one hundred of the best local blueberry bushes (with each one named for the person who found it), cross-pollinated varieties, and eventually produced the modern day blueberry suitable for farming. The "Blueberry Queen," as Elizabeth came to be known, was one of the founders of the Blueberry Growers Cooperative Association (later known as Tru-Blu) and was the first woman member (and, later, president) of the American Cranberry Growers Association. She was also the first person to receive the New Jersey Department of Agriculture citation, as well as numerous other awards and medals from horticultural soci- eties in several states. Today, the blueberries that are grown worldwide for a thriving international industry trace at least part of their ancestry to Whitesbog and New Jersey. Cranberries & The Pine Barrens As a native fruit, cranberries have a long history in New Jersey. The Lenni Lenape Indians called cranberries "pakihm" and today the Perkiomen Creek comes from the Lenape word "pakihomomink," which means "where there are cranberries grow- ing." The Lenape, says Conner, were actually the first to have "craisins," drying them for use in soups and other mixtures. They also ground dried cranberries into a jerky-like substance called pemmican, which was good for long trips. When the Dutch arrived around 1655, they thought cranberry flowers resembled crane's heads and dubbed them "craneberries," which later evolved to cranberries. With a love of aerated, acidic soils, cranberries were one of the only crops to grow in the Pine Barrens, called the "barrens" because the land was thought unsuit- able for farming. Instead, around the 1750s, bog iron (a crude form of iron ore) became the main industry, with over thirty iron works in production in South Jersey at one point. By the mid-1850s, however, with pine trees used as the main source of fuel at the furnaces, the land was clear-cut and scalped. "The land was considered so worthless, if you bought a newspaper subscription, they would give you land," says Conner. "They were called newspaper towns." Some realized, however, that the cleared land was perfect for grow- ing cranberries. In 1789, a law had been passed stating that you could not collect wild cranberries on your land before October 10, and in 1835, Benjamin Thomas built the first New Jersey cranberry farm in Pemberton. Soon, the industry was growing rapidly. In 1857, James A. Fenwick purchased one hundred eight acres of wild cranberry bogs south of Hanover Furnace in what is now Whitesbog. Meanwhile, Barclay White start- ed cultivating cranberries in 1851, and his son, the aforementioned J.J. White, married James Fenwick's daughter, Mary Fenwick. As the great-grandson of J.J. White and Mary Fenwick and great-nephew of "Blueberry Queen" Elizabeth C. White, Joe Darlington's family histo- ry equally reflects the history of New Jersey cranberry growing. His family is responsible for many of the tech- nical advancements in the industry, from a sorter invented in 1903 to the Darlington harvester, which mecha- nized cranberry harvesting. Farming Methods Around the 1960s, collecting "floaters" left behind by the dry pick- ers led to what Conner jokingly refers to as a "duh" moment in cranberry harvesting. Whereas cranberries were once tediously picked by hand, at some point it occurred to farmers "Why don't we float all of the cran- berries for harvesting?" Eventually, Joe developed a "floating harvester," which picks the cranberries from plants submerged in water. The picked cranberries then easily float to the top, due to four air chambers within the cranberry. This produced a nineteen to twenty-six percent increase in yield. This unique farming method, while a large part of the appeal of those cranberry ads, also leads to a lot of misperceptions about how cranberries grow. "People make all sorts of assumptions," says Conner. "Cranberries are not aquatic; they're a wetland plant that behaves like a desert plant." In other words, the cranberries do not actually grow in water; they grow in coarse sand that should be wet but not stagnant. Thus, the bogs work on a damming system whereby water is let into and out of the bogs depending on needs and temperatures. Bogs are only totally flooded for harvesting and again in the winter to keep the plants warmer. Buds set in July for a sixteen month growing cycle, with harvests taking place generally over four- and-a-half weeks in October. When plants are in flower, the Darlingtons bring in nine hundred hives of bees to pollinate. With pests like blunt- nosed leafhopper and diseases like False Blossom, long vine development times, beavers dragging logs into floodgates, occasional bad markets, an abundance of hand weeding, and a two-year payment cycle, Conner says it can take twenty years to financially break even on a new bog. Conner says she sleeps with a com- puter next to her bed that alerts her if the temperature drops or if there's too much rainfall. "It's a 365-day- a-year job," she says. "We are an endangered species." As one of approximately nine hun- dred growers that own Ocean Spray, she says consumers who purchase Ocean Spray "are buying directly from growers." In fact, over nine- ty-nine percent of New Jersey crops are sold through Ocean Spray, says Conner. While the water harvesting is used for processed fruit and juices, dry harvesting must still be used for fresh fruit. "It's a whole different ball game" comments Conner. "With water harvesting, the cranberries get beaten up too much." Visiting The Bogs After a wealth of information, Conner leads us out to a bus that will

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