PAPERS AND DISCUSSIONS, 



AT THE SEMI-ANNUAI. MEETING AT 



FRYEBURG, October 31st and November Lst, 2d, 1876. 



CRANBERRY CULTURE. 



By C. L. Washburn, Pembroke, 



Knowledge, labor and skill, judiciously and persistently applied, 

 will ensure the accomplishment of any undertaking. within the 

 capacity of man to achieve. The once quite prevalent opinion 

 that successful farming depends upon advantageous location, depth 

 and fertility of virgin soil, favorable weather and money capital, 

 has long since given way to the more radical and sensible view, 

 that success depends upon the fibre of the man. Misapprehen- 

 sions with regard to the requisite conditions, cannot alter their 

 nature, nor their bearing upon the case. Like the laws of the 

 Medes and Persians, they change not. Common sense, education 

 and " push " are the farmer's proper credentials, and having these, 

 he may go forward, taking due advantage of circumstances, but 

 placing no dependence whatever upon "luck." Indeed, persist- 

 ency of application is the crowning need of the hour, and the 

 want of it has shipwrecked more enterprises upon the farm than 

 all other causes combined. The possession of this trait is as 

 indispensable in conducting the operations of the farm as in man- 

 aging an International Exhibition, or removing the obstructions 

 at Hellgate. The present is also emphatically the day of close 

 competition and small profits ; hence the still greater need of a 

 determined will in order to succeed. Time was when a live New 

 England farmer could start a new branch of farming industry and 

 follow it by himself, year after year, without fear of molestation, 

 but in these days of Yankee shrewdness and keen observation, he 

 who steps out of the beaten track to begin a new and paying 

 branch of the business, is soon aware that some lynx-eyed neigh- 

 bor, on the alert for anything that promises better returns, is on 



