Not Just Bikes and Berries

Monroe County in Wisconsin is promoting themselves as the place to go for "Bikes & Berries", but there is more here than cranberry farms and bike trails.  Don't get me wrong, we loved the bike trail and we've enjoyed driving past the cranberry fields and speculating on how it's all accomplished.  There is a Cranberry Discovery Center here in downtown Warrens, but they charge $4 each to go in and acquire that information, so I headed onto the trusty internet for some research instead. Thanks to www.wisconsinhistory.org for this information.

Cranberry Farming in Wisconsin

Cranberries have always been a vital part of our state's agricultural economy. Wisconsin provides more than half of the nation's total cranberry crop from 18,000 acres of beds. Another 160,000 acres are given to adjacent wetlands, woodlands, and uplands, and huge networks of ditches, dikes, dams and reservoirs are a common sight in our state.
Wild cranberries are native to the marshlands of central Wisconsin, and Native Americans harvested them for centuries. Local Ho-Chunk Indians carried on a large trade for them with early settlers of Juneau County in 1849. Commercial production in Wisconsin began near Berlin in Green Lake County in the early 1850s. The center of the industry later moved to marshes around Tomah, Warrens and Wisconsin Rapids.

Harvesting Cranberries

For hundreds of years cranberry harvesters picked the wild berries by hand. Starting in the 19th century, the cranberry rake— a hand-held tool with a large comb at one end and a basket at the other — increased production. The rake allowed leaves and stems to pass through the tines of the comb while collecting the berries in the basket.
During harvest the marshes were flooded with 6 to 10 inches of water to make the berries float to the surface, where seasonal workers wielding cranberry rakes collected them. Each fall, large bunkhouses in Tomah and Wisconsin Rapids filled with migrant workers. Native American workers would set up camp on the grounds of some of the larger marshes to work as pickers. Workers were paid 75 cents per bushel, and in 1875 pickers averaged two bushels per day.
The berries were then brought to a warehouse for cleaning, grading for quality and storage. At the end of a long day of picking berries, workers might look forward to dancing and music before retiring early to prepare for another day's labor.
During the 1945 season, German prisoners of war confined in Wisconsin worked in the cranberry bogs near Wisconsin Rapids. The prisoners worked in the marshes all summer, weeding the beds, digging drainage ditches and assisting with the harvest.
Around 1950 harvesting began to be mechanized. In 1949, 96 percent of Wisconsin cranberries were harvested with hand rakes, but by 1956 two-thirds were harvested mechanically. Today almost all berries are harvested by machine.

cranberry pickers, 1905

harvesting cranberries, 1950

cranberry harvesting today

 I also ran across this article about the local cranberry price crisis, which I thought interesting.  Canada is now a cranberry contender and squeezing their way in.  As always I'm torn on which side to support as I'm thrilled when Canadians succeed in the worldwide marketplace.
http://lacrossetribune.com/jacksoncochronicle/news/local/cranberry-prices-squeezing-area-growers/article_e6e9144c-bd9b-11e2-808c-0019bb2963f4.html

But, as I started out saying, Monroe County isn't all berries and bikes, as you all have seen from my recent posts about the area.  Now that I've filled you in on the berries and the bikes, here's a few odds & ends to tide you over until you make your way out to central Wisconsin yourself.

Careful on the roads, Amish buggies share the road, especially in the town of Cashton

Susan Renae Sampson is an artist who painted 2 of these signs about Historic Warrens, and many more similar signs in Black River Falls as well. 

We went for a walk around Castle Rock at the campground every evening.

But I saved the best for last, every time we drove into Warrens we had to pass this scarecrow.  They take their vegetable gardening pretty seriously out this way.  We've seen a lot of deer...but still!