CRANBERRY CULTURE. 241 



tract of meadow land which runs through the town and extends 

 up into the town of Bowdoin, and scattered over it are acres where 

 they grow naturally, and I dare say there has been hundreds of 

 bushels picked from that meadow this year. This has been a 

 great cranberry year with us, and must be taken as the exception, 

 and not as the ru^e. ITon. Charles J. Oilman of Brunswick has 

 gathered from a piece of cultivated land on the Androscoggin, 380 

 bushels. lie has between one and two acres. They cost him 

 nothing but the trouble of picking. I have a good chance and 

 calculate to set out plants some time when I have time, and prob- 

 ably if I ever do it I shall have to take time. I have some thirty 

 acres of muck land, where you can run a pole out of sight, no 

 matter how long it is ; and I have thought of trying that. While 

 I am speaking, I will relate what a Massachusetts grower said to 

 me about the preparation of the land for the reception of the 

 vines. He told me to take the turf off and haul upon the muck 

 sand or fine gravel to the depth of two or three inches, and the 

 poorer the sand, the less soil with it, the better. Their manner of 

 setting is to cut the vines in a hay cutter and strew them on the 

 bed evenly and trample them into the sand. It is done very rap- 

 idly. He says there is no trouble but they will grow, if you just 

 take a little trouble to get the grass out at the start, and once 

 grown they are masters of the situation, unless some bushes 

 should spring up. I believe the cranberry to be a very profitable 

 crop, when once it has got so that it produces. 



Mr. BoDWELL of Acton, Member from York County. 1 am not 

 a cranberry grower, but I live in a vicinity where cranberries are 

 grown. One of my neighbors, who lives about three-fourths of a 

 mile from me, had a piece of land similar to some that has been 

 spoken of here, where, except same bushes on a part of it, nothing 

 grew worth cutting. Some twenty j'ears ago he discovered on 

 the west side of this piece of land a cranberry bed, and after a 

 while he picked cranberries enough from among the grass to 

 supply his family. That bed still continues, and has extended 

 until it covers about a quarter of an acre. In the centre of the 

 piece there is a wet hole, where the water stands during the spring 

 and fall to the depth of two or three feet. About ten years ago 

 he commenced to cultivate cranberries on the east side. He 

 plowed about half an acre, took the sod off and piled it up. 

 Below this was a white soil, rather hard, and on that he put his 

 cranberries — cut the vines up and sowed them over the ground. 



