140 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



prevent the potato rot ? There is risk in everything somewhere. 

 Then why give up the idea of raising cranberries on the lands that 

 cannot be flowed because one year in five, or one year in ten we 

 may fail of a crop ? I would advise every farmer to raise enough 

 for his own use, and if he can have a few barrels to sell so much 

 the better. 



Mr. Starrett of Warren. There are cranberries raised in my 

 town. Quite an amount are taken from vines which grow naturally 

 on the meadows and salt marshes. The crop has been very large 

 this year. One man has sold over one hundred bushels from his 

 meadow. They are cultivated to some extent on reclaimed swamp 

 lands. When the turf is taken off the soil is sandy. Mr. Coraery, 

 the largest cultivator, began some fifteen years ago with a piece 

 perhaps fifty feet square, planting them in the sod. That was the 

 method generally practiced in the early days of cranberry culture, 

 but it has been abandoned because it is a waste of vines, and 

 because with the vines you transplant the grasses that you wish 

 to keep out. From this piece he has picked forty-five bushels. 

 He has gradually enlarged his area until he has now nearly an 

 acre under cultivation, on the greater part of which, however, the 

 vines are scattering and have but just commenced to bear. His 

 entire crop this year is about seventy-five bushels. Eastwood, in 

 his work on the cranberry, says it is essential that the cultivator 

 shall be able to draw off the water, as stagnant water in summer 

 is injurious to the vines, and I have seen an instance where a 

 small portion of a cranberry patch could not be drained, and on 

 that portion the vines were killed. The berries are generally 

 raked from the vines on the marshes and meadows. The rakes do 

 not take them off entirely clean, and it is desirable to have raked 

 cranberries hand picked before putting them in market; by the 

 use of the rake the crop can be secured quicker, and so there is 

 less danger from frost. The cultivated cranberries are picked by 

 hand, as the rake tears up the vines. Mr. Comery told me that 

 he picked this fall three bushels in a day. He thinks his older 

 vines will in a few years become so firmly rooted that they can be 

 raked. He also thinks that the plants would root more quickly if 

 sand were hauled on, as the sand would cover the runners and 

 cause them to take root. 



Mr. Mallett of Topsham, Member from Sagadahoc County. 

 There are some places in my town where cranberries grow spon- 

 taneously, and some few cultivated fields. There is a large 



