B. P. I. — 598. 



EXPERIMENTS IN BLUEBERRY CULTURE. 



INTHODUCTION. 



In the grounds of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington are 

 two blueberry bushes of large size and great age. The taller is about 

 9 feet high. The largest stem is nearly 3 inches in diameter. It is 

 known that these bushes were growing prior to 1871, thirty-nine years 

 ago, and all the evidence indicates that they were planted at a much 

 earlier date. They are probably over 50 years old." In the Arnold 

 Arboretum, near Boston, are many blueberry bushes 30 years old 

 or more, grown from the seed by Mr. Jackson Dawson or trans- 

 planted from their wild habitats prior to 1880. 



The two cases here cited demonstrate the fallacy of the popular 

 idea that the blueberry can not be transplanted or cultivated. This 

 idea rests on the unsuccessful experience of those who have taken up 

 Avild bushes and set them in a rich, well-manured garden soil. These 

 are exactly the conditions, as shown by experiments described in this 

 publication, under which blueberry plants become feeble and unpro- 

 ductive. 



Four agricultural experiment stations, those of Maine, Rhode 

 Island, New York, and Michigan, have attempted to grow the blue- 

 berry as a fruit, but none of these attempts has resulted in the com- 

 mercial success of blueberry culture, and the experimental results 

 have been chiefly of a negative character. This outcome appeiirs to 

 have been due to a misunderstanding of the soil requirements of the 

 blueberry, which, as will be shown later, are radically different from 

 those of our common cultivated plants. 



"The plants are Vaccinium atrococcum, a species closely related to Vaccinium 

 corymhosum, the well-known swamp or high bnsh blueberry of the Northern 

 States. In a list of the trees and shrubs of the Smithsonian crrounds prepared 

 by Arthur Schott in 1871, these bushes are included, but identified, however, 

 as Vaccinium fuscatum. The late Mr. George H. Brown, for more than a gen- 

 eration the superintendent of planting in the parks of Washington, also as- 

 sured the writer that these plants were not set out since he first became 

 responsible for the Smithsonian grounds, in 1871. The present plan of the 

 grounds was made by Mr. Andrew J. Downing, but the actual planting was not 

 done until after his death, in 1S52. It is possible that tlie I)lueberry bushes 

 may have been set out as early as 1848, in which year a partial planting of the 

 Smithsonian grounds was made by Mr. John Douglass. 



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