Cranberries

For some 200 years after that first Thanksgiving, however, cranberries were picked in the marshes or swamps where they grew wild. It wasn’t until 1816 that farmers in Massachusetts began cultivating them after discovering that adding sand to the soil improved the yield. But the harvest involved arduous stoop labor of picking by hand in soggy conditions.

Section:Gallery

Sun., Nov. 19, 2017

A harvest crew shrinks a floating boom around the crop of floating cranberries in a bog at McPhail Family Farms, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017, near Ilwaco, Washington. The shrinking boom forces berries onto an elevator which emptied them into the bins on a truck. McPhail is one of the largest cranberry growers in Washington state.

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Farmer Malcolm McPhail operates a machine that beats the cranberries off the submerged plants in one of his bogs near Long Beach, Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2017. At left, his wife Ardell McPhail follows on another beater machine. The two operate one of the largest cranberry farms in Washington.

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Guillermina Hernandez pulls a floating boom around millions of floating cranberries in a bog at McPhail Family Farms, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017, near Ilwaco, Washington. McPhail is one of the largest cranberry growers in Washington state. Hernandez’s husband works for McPhail full-time while Guillermina works only during harvest.

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Ripe cranberries float to the surface of a flooded bog at McPhail Family Farms, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017.

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Malcolm McPhail drives a beater through a flooded cranberry bog at his farm near Ilwaco, Washington, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017. The beater loosens the berries from the plants, the first step in the harvest process. He is the largest cranberry grower in the state.

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Guillermina Hernandez tows a log boom around the floating cranberries at the McPhail Family Farms near Long Beach, Washington, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017, as the McPhails begin their annual harvest of cranberries in southwest Washington.

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Workers use paddles to push or pull cranberries toward an elevator that would lift them out of the water in the bog during harvest, shown Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017.

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Farmer Malcolm McPhail drives a beater through a flooded cranberry bog, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017. As the beater’s reel strikes the submerged plants, the berries float to the surface and can be gathered by the harvest crew the next day.

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Guillermina Hernandez uses a paddle to move floating berries into the middle of the cranberry bog during early morning harvest, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017, on the McPhail Family Farms in Ilwaco, Washington.

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Farm worker Alison Hilson pulls a drag boom to drag a load of cranberries to the elevator, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017, at McPhail Family Farms during the cranberry harvest.

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Workers gather floating cranberries with a wooden boom in a bog owned by farmer Malcolm McPhail near Long Beach, Washington, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017. The berries grow in low fields called bogs. When they're ripe, the bog is flooded and the plants beaten with submerged machines called beaters. A day later, the workers gather the floating berries and force them onto a mechanical elevator to put them in containers on a truck.

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Farm workers Chris Jacobsen, left, and Blane Sanders set up the elevator which will lift the harvest cranberries onto waiting trucks at McPhail Family Farms, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017, near Ilwaco, Washington.

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Malcolm McPhail, left, talks with his son Steve, right, while the harvest goes on nearby, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017, near Ilwaco, Washington on the Long Beach peninsula. The two McPhails are partners in the cranberry business while the younger McPhail also builds houses.

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Les Phillips pulls berries away from a floating boom surrounding millions of floating cranberries in a bog at McPhail Family Farms, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017, near Ilwaco, Washington. McPhail is one of the largest cranberry growers in Washington state. Phillips isn’t a farm worker but his wife bought a gift certificate for a participatory tour of a cranberry farm.

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Guillermina Hernandez pulls a floating boom around millions of floating cranberries in a bog at McPhail Family Farms, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017, near Ilwaco, Washington. McPhail is one of the largest cranberry growers in Washington state. Hernandez’s husband works for McPhail full-time while Guillermina works only during harvest.

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Guillermina Hernandez, left, and Les Phillips sweep berries away from a floating boom around the millions of floating cranberries in a bog at McPhail Family Farms, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017, near Ilwaco, Washington. Sweeping back the berries allows the workers to pull the boom tighter and tighter as the berries are lifted from the water by an elevator. McPhail is one of the largest cranberry growers in Washington state. Hernandez’s husband works for McPhail full-time while Guillermina works only during harvest.

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Guillermina Hernandez uses a paddle to gather berries as she pulls a floating boom around millions of floating cranberries in a bog at McPhail Family Farms, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017, near Ilwaco, Washington. McPhail is one of the largest cranberry growers in Washington state. Hernandez’s husband works for McPhail full-time while Guillermina works only during harvest.

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A harvest crew uses a wooden boom to pull millions of floating cranberries together in a bog before they travel up an elevator to bins on a truck bed, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017, in Ilwaco, Washington.

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Millions of cranberries, once gathered inside a wooden boom during harvest, are rafted together before being pushed toward an elevator that lifts them out of the bog, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017.

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Seen through several inches of water flooding the bog, ripe cranberries await harvest on the McPhail Family Farms in Ilwaco, Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2017. Once beater machines strip the plant, the floating berries are corraled by workers.

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Ardell McPhail, who owns McPhail Family Farms with husband Malcolm and other family members, runs a beater machine in a flooded bog at the farm in Ilwaco, Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2017. The beater machine loosens the berries, which float to the surface.

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Les Phillips pulls on a floating boom surrounding millions of floating cranberries in a bog at McPhail Family Farms, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017, near Ilwaco, Washington. McPhail is one of the largest cranberry growers in Washington state. Phillips isn’t a farm worker but his wife bought a gift certificate for a participatory tour of a cranberry farm.

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Guillermina Hernandez pulls a floating boom around millions of floating cranberries in a bog at McPhail Family Farms, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017, near Ilwaco, Washington. McPhail is one of the largest cranberry growers in Washington state. Hernandez’s husband works for McPhail full-time while Guillermina works only during harvest.

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Beater machines and their rotating reels bring millions of ripe cranberries to the surface of a flooded bog at the McPhail Family Farms in Ilwaco, Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2017.

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Farm workers position a gas-powered elevator on the edge of a bog on McPhail Family Farms in Ilwaco, Washington, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017. The floating cranberries are gathered in a wood boom system, then they are lifted by the elevator into bins for transportation to processing facilities.

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Ripe cranberries grow in a test bed at the research station manned by Washington State University in near Long Beach, Washington, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017.

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Blane Sanders watches berries fall into bins after being lifted from a bog at McPhail Family Farms, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017, near Ilwaco, Washington. McPhail is one of the largest cranberry growers in Washington state.

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A harvest crew works inside a floating boom filled with millions of floating cranberries in a bog at McPhail Family Farms, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017, near Ilwaco, Washington. The crew was moving them toward an elevator that lifted them from the water to bins on the back of a truck. McPhail is one of the largest cranberry growers in Washington state.

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The Cranberry Museum in Long Beach, Washington tells the story of cranberry farming in southwest Washington, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017.

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The Cranberry Museum and Gift Shop carries many different cranberry products made from the local crop, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017, near Long Beach, Washington.

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