Photo Album
The Picturesque Cranberry Coast of Washington

Photo courtesy of Cranberry Coast Chamber of Commerce

The Fall Dry Harvesting Of The Cranberry Crop

It's Fall, and the berries are bright on the bogs.
The pickers are harvesting the crop that gives our Cranberry Coast it's name.
Planted in a mixture of sand and peat, cranberries grow on low running vines,
and are trained to grow in the same direction. This enables the masterful invention
of local mechanical genius, Julius Furford, called the Furford Picker, to dry harvest
the berries and prune the vines at the same time.

Travel down to the bogs and observe the pickers in action. You will notice that the
mowing machine is followed by it's operator and every 40 feet or so a burlap bag
full of fruit is dropped along the way. The bags are then loaded on small flat-bed
narrow-gauge rail cars and hauled to sorting sheds at the edge of the bog.

{source: "Guide To The South Beach" published by the South Beach Bulletin}

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