Cranberry Culture. 315 



THINNING AND PEOTECTING THE FEUITS. 



After the fruits have set, if there are more than six or eight well formed 

 berries upon a single truss, it will be well to reduce the number to six or eight 

 at most for the strongest plants. As these increase in size, in order to prevent 

 them from becoming distorted and ill shaped, a support must be supplied. Experi- 

 ence has proved that a most convenient arrangement of this kind can be provided 

 by using a small square of fine mesh window screen wire, cut so that it will fit 

 the top of the pot somewliat closely and still project sufficiently to support 

 the berries. 



Plants grown in this way make very satisfactory objects for decorative pur- 

 poses and form a very attractive feature in a forcing liouse, although the yield 

 of berries is not sufficient to make them of any great economic value unless the 

 price obtainable is at least $1 per quart. Varieties with large symmetrically 

 formed fruits and perfect flowers should be selected for this work. 



VARIETIES. 



The popularity of one sort soon gives place to that of a more promising 

 new rival. This is perhaps more strikingly true of varieties of strawberries 

 than of any other cultivated fruit. Varieties are of local adaptation, however. 

 and a new sort must pass an examination in each locality before its fitness can 

 be determined In some localities sorts remain in general use for many years, 

 but in most sections they follow one another in quick succession. Exceptions to 

 this rule are some of the strawberry-growing sections of the Pacific Coast. 

 These areas seem to require peculiar qualities in the varieties adapted to them 

 and as a result only sorts of local origin find favor there. Some varieties of 

 this character have been able to hold the first place among cultivated sorts of 

 the region for a quarter of a century or more in spite of repeated introductions 

 of new varieties from other sections. This serves to emphasize the statement 

 that varieties are local in their adaptation. Perhaps no fruit is more cosmopoli- 

 tan than the strawberry, yet this is only made possible by the great variation in 

 sorts adapting it to all the varied conditions of soil and climate which it has 

 to encounter. 



CRANBERRY CULTURE. . 



By Prof. L. B. Corbett,, Horticulturist, Bureau of Plant Industry, United States 



Department of Agriculture. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The cranberry of commerce, known to botanists by the name Vaccinium 

 macrocarpon, is native to a narrow belt of country along the Atlantic Coast from 

 Maine to New Jersey and in isolated areas along the Allegheny Mountains from 

 Southern Pennsylvania to North Carolina. In the central United States the plant 

 is found in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. 



The earliest plantings of the cranberry Were made in the Cape Cod region 

 of Massachusetts in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, probably between 

 1800 and 1818. From a meager start the industry has grown to one of first mag- 



