CRANBERRIES. 247 



vines woiild be cut off and greatly injured. As far as I have 

 seen, vines, which are of much length, and which lay under 

 water during the winter and spring, will, if let alone, naturally 

 lean to the north-east, (for the same reason that fruit trees 

 lean that way,) and as I rake my vines all one way, that is, I 

 draw the rake from the south-west to the north-east, so I placed 

 those sods of vines which did not stand erect so that they 

 would lean to the north-east. 



Every year since the year 1840, these vines were eaten up 

 as regularly as the year came round, by a worm called in this 

 vicinity the cranberry-worm. This worm may be the same, or 

 at least, a species of the same worm, which operated the last 

 of June on the apple tree ; its appearance to the eye is the 

 same, its operations the same, and it has the same faculty of 

 jerking itself back as the apple tree worm. Some seasons they 

 seemed to threaten total annihilation, the vines presenting to 

 the eye the same appearance that an orchard does when its 

 foliage has been eaten by the canker-worm. To destroy this 

 worm the vines were kept under water from spring until the 

 first of July, 1852. This destroyed all the worms, I believe, as 

 I have not seen one since. When the water was taken off, the 

 vines grew vigorously, forming the blossom bud for the present 

 year, and the result is as handsome a lot of berries as ever was 

 seen. 



Nearly every year I have cut the grass near the first of July, 

 thereby giving the plants the air, sun, and light. 



One side of this piece borders upon a small brook, which, 

 previous to my cultivating the vine, in a dry time would become 

 dry. In this brook I formed a dam in two places ; these dams; 

 most of the time in a season like this, keep the meadow wet, 

 and the water is forced back among the vines, the object of 

 which is to protect them from frosts, which usually occur in all 

 the summer months in low lands. 



In addition to the above statement, I would like to give my 

 experience in the cultivation of the cranberry ; I would do it 

 with the hope that by my efforts and experience, whether suc- 

 cessful or otherwise, those who would try the experiment may 

 be encouraged and emboldened to persevere in the cultivation 



