The financial importance of the blueberry industry is very difficult to estimate at the present time. In Maine, the canning of blueberries is largely in the hands of a few leading packers. The largest of these factories has a daily capacity of 700 bushels, and the average annual output is 8,300 cases of two dozen cans each – representing 6,250 bushels of fresh fruit.

The number of hands employed in the various factories would aggregate about 100, but including the pickers, there are from 1,000 to 2,000 men, women and children employed in the blueberry industry during canning season. About $30,000 is distributed among the pickers each year.

50 years ago, 1957

Maine Gov. Edmund Muskie said that he attaches considerable importance to the proposed $2.5 million bond issue for ferry service to two groups of islands in Penobscot Bay, one composing of Vinalhaven and North Haven islands, and the other the long island of Isleboro.

There are a number of reasons why people now living out in the bay are entitled to better ferry service to the mainland. Muskie, however, is looking far beyond the present needs of the islanders to the great potentialities of the islands for recreation and tourism.

25 years ago, 1982

• A strike threatened by 3,300 union workers at Bradlees department stores in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts was postponed indefinitely Wednesday because of progress toward a new contract, officials said. Bradlees, which operates 43 discount stores in the three states, had been unable to reach an agreement on a new contract with the three locals, and union members voted 1,200-200 last Sunday to strike.

• Unemployment soared to a record 9.8 percent in July in what a labor leader labeled Friday as a “shocking leap” that should impel Congress to revamp the Reagan administration’s economic policies.