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Cranberry Hoops

Cranberry Hoops are not made of cranberries. Rather, a cranberry hoop is a simple and ingenious device for telling quickly how many barrels of the little red berries a bog owner may expect from a given bog.

It was invented in the 1930’s by Russell Trufant, a cranberry grower in South Carver, on the South Shore. It is an adjustable hoop. This is tossed anywhere on the bog, and the number of cranberries growing within its circumference is counted. Other things being equal, such as favorable weather - enough rain, no frost, plenty of sun, the number of barrels is denoted by the number of berries counted.

Fifty berries means a probable yield of fifty barrels of berries to an acre. Of course, in using the hoop, the grower is also guided by his year-to-year record of what his bogs have actually produced. It is said that when Uncle Sam asks the growers how many barrels they forecast for a season, the growers come right up with the answer and are seldom out of the way by more than one or two berries. So good is the hoop!

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