146 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



There is no enterprise in which any of the good people of Maine 

 are engaged in which the margin of profit is so large as in the 

 growth of the cranberry. Let me give an instance. A neighbor 

 of mine had in 1856, and has had for a number of years, a mort- 

 gage on his farm that had accumulated interest until it had got 

 beyond his control and he had ceased to try to lift it. Lying right 

 back of his buildings, in a soil made up almost entirely of quartz 

 rock, and on the top of a hill where he could not flow it, was a 

 piece of marshy land that measured just one-half acre. In the 

 fall of 1856 or '57, he set that out to cranberries. The next year, 

 the season of '58 I think, he sold from that a trifle less than $90 

 worth of cranberries, and since 1859, for 16 years he has 

 never sold less than 150 bushels in a year and from that to 300 

 bushels from that piece of land. He has long since redeemed his 

 mortgage and fixed up round his buildings. He has gathered this 

 year, I think, between $000 and $700 worth of cranberries, and 

 how near he is to exhausting his soil I don't know. 



Li our section of. the Stato, we have no difiSculty in growing 

 the cranberry in mowing fields. The only trouble is, they are in 

 the way of the mowing machine. More than 1000 bushels are 

 yearly grown in mowing fields, where there is no flowage at all. 

 We cannot grow them as well because we cannot flow them in 

 June, anithat is the time that the fly lays the egg which prodnces 

 the worm, and if we could flow them we could protect ourselves 

 from the only enemy we have. I do not care for the frost, for I 

 can protect myself from that by selecting the right variety. Here 

 is the second mistake. Many want the vine that produces the 

 largest fruit, and that is just the kind we don't want in Maine. I 

 am now speaking of the Cherry cranberry, that is nearly round, 

 showing two colors, red and pink. The Bugle cranberry, which 

 is egg-shaped, is pretty safe from attacks of frost that destroy the 

 Cherry. Another mistake, in my opinion, is, that in planting, 

 people don't set one-tenth the number of vines they ought to, and 

 if there are roots or seeds in the soil there is too much for the 

 vines to contend with. The process in my section is this : If the 

 land can be plowed we plow it, using a heavy team, and then har- 

 row it; then furrow two feet apart and. set out the vines. If I 

 were to plant on your soil I wouldn't set vines, but I would cut 

 them in a hay cutter and sow them. Every piece will produce a 

 stock. In my section we have too many weeds to contend with, 

 and it takes too long to get them started. One of our cultivators 



