CRANBERRY CULTURE. 145 



it has been demonstrated that this can only be done where by 

 flooding you can guard against the risk from freezing. 



Mr. Barrows. At the meeting in Calais it was reported that 

 some parties had successfully cultivated cranberries, but that on 

 some part of their patch they had suffered from frost. Was it from 

 spring or fall frost ? 



Col. Walker of Fryeburg. It appears to me I am shut out, 

 because I cannot control the water. Saco river will rise and fall, 

 and I cannot help it, and at a time when we can't dip a pail of 

 water we can't flow a cranberry bed. Would the gentleman 

 advise me to undertake to raise cranberries when I can use the 

 water only when it will come ? 



President Shaw. I would say, that in Massachusetts, where I 

 am aquainted, cranberry beds are almost invariably on land which 

 they can flow in the spring and fiiU and not by artificial means. 



The subject was here laid upon the table, and was taken up in 

 the evening, after the discussion on sheep husbandry, when Mr.. 

 Wasson, who was not present in the afternoon, made the follow- 

 ing remarks : 



I know that turkey and cranberry make a favorite dish, but hovr 

 cranberry and mutton may go together I don't know. I am not 

 engaged extensively in cranberry culture, though I have ciilti- 

 vated them for some ten or twelve years, and I live in a vicinity 

 where they have been cultivated for a number of years with the 

 highest success. I was agreeably surprised to find so large a ter- 

 ritory so well adapted to the culture of the cranberry as I find in. 

 your vicinity, and back many miles along the railroad. It would 

 seem to me that you are more favorably situated for growing, 

 cranberries than for growing sheep. 



But it is not every marsh, or muck-bed, or bog, over which the 

 water may or may not be thrown, that can be successfully culti- 

 vated to cranberries. There are about as many failures as suc- 

 cesses, and the reason is, that parties set out vines without 

 knowing the conditions of success or failure. The principal ele- 

 ment in the soil that produces cranberries must be sand, and 

 undoubtedly you have some of it in your soil. The rocks should 

 be quartz rock. If you have quartz sand or silex in your land, 

 with or without muck, or with or without water, if proper care is 

 taken in planting out the vines at the start, success is sure ta 

 follow. 



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