MAETHA'S VINEYAED. 405 



are now between thirty and forty acres in cranberries, part 

 cultivated and part natural bog. 



The expense of preparing a cranberry meadow, " bog- 

 ging," levelling, sanding and setting, varies from $250 to 

 $400 per acre, if Labor and team are hired, dependent on 

 the " lay of the land," fecility for draining and flowing, and 

 the convenience of sand for covering the meadow. Mois- 

 ture is indispensable, and much labor required to keep out 

 grass and foul stuff indigenous to such land. The plants 

 will give a full crop about the fifth year, and after that, ex- 

 cept for frosts or destructive insects, against which flowing 

 is the protection, will with care yield to the acre from fifty 

 bushels up into the hundreds, worth from three to five dol- 

 lars per bushel. One meadow there was mentioned as hav- 

 ing the past season produced ninety barrels on two acres, 

 then worth |12 per barrel, and waiting for a rise, — $540 for 

 an acre's crop. I was told that there are many acres which 

 could be brought into cultivation for this valuable vine, 

 and readily flowed, which is a prime necessity to the suc- 

 cessful cultivation of a cranberry meadow. 



I believe this crop Avill yet be a very important one for 

 the people of Martha's Vineyard, 



The second day of the Fair was beautiful, and brought out 

 these good people in crowds. 



To these Vineyarders, isolated as they are, — doomed never 

 to see on their ocean-bounded home the o:oro;eous gilded 

 chariot which bears on its pinnacled height visions of spangled 

 beauty, which soon after float through the air on a trapeze, or 

 on a bare-ljacked, fiery steed, whose lack of apparel they 

 strive to rival, dashing recklessly around the ring of "the 

 greatest moral show on earth under canvas ;" forbidden as 

 they are by the " dissocial sea" ever to view there the pride, 

 pomp and circumstance of contingent war, which wraps in 

 blue and yellow glory the bloodless warriors of the main- 

 land, as they follow the rattle of the spirit-stirring drum 

 and "the vile squeaking of the wry-necked fife," or the 

 booming band in full imperial uniforms, through the perils of 

 a sweltering Fourth of July or the horrors of a wet muster 

 in September, — the cattle-show is their great holiday, a 

 combination of all the shows on the mainland. They come for 



