360 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
cranberry bog is never very hard,and commonly quite as soft as 
rainwater. Likewise, water used to flood a cranberry farm should 
not be very hard and never muddy, nor have any clay in suspension; 
otherwise, the cranberries will most likely fail. 
Many growers in Wisconsin will tell you point blank that it is not 
necessary to sanda cranberry bog in that state like they have to do 
down on Cape Cod and other places in the East, and in proof of this 
will call to your attention scores of profitable cranberry bogs on 
which no sand has ever been used. Upon making a careful exam- 
ination, however, it will be found that these bogs are of nearly or 
quite pure undecomposed peat, and, so long as they are kept wet 
enough so that little decomposition takes place, they will remain 
fairly productive, but let them rot enough to set free from the peaty 
mould a considerable amount of plant food in an assimilable con- 
dition, and you will find them surely and literally “going to grass.” 
Any farmer who has a wire grass peat bog or marsh which he can 
arrange to flood at will can raise cranberries, and often quite profit- 
ably, even though there may be no sand available. 
If the piece can be drained dry enough to break it up, so much the 
better; if not, it can sometimes be turned pretty deeply and evenly 
with a breaking plow just at the time in the spring when it has 
thawed six to ten inches deep. The sod thus turned may be pressed 
down with a heavy rollerand is then ready to plant. Of course, if it 
cannot be drained, the plowing and rolling will have to be done be- 
fore it has thawed too deep, else the team will get mired. There are 
thousands of acres of worthless wire grass peat marsh in this state 
that could be made valuable in this way. 
In case the water can not be found at a higher level than the 
peat bog itself, one part of the bog may be enclosed by an embank- 
ment, or dyke, of sods from the necessary ditches reinforced by clay 
hauled from the outside, to be used for a reservoir, while an adjoin- 
ing portion may be in like manner enclosed to be planted with cran- 
berries. The necessary water may be pumped by windmill or wind- 
mills into the reservoir, for use when needed. One good sized 
windmill will pump a large amount of water three to five feet high 
in aseason. This would do for a small cranberry patch and might 
in some cases, no doubt, be made to pay quite well. 
Toenter into cranberry growing for a business, however, it would 
certainly be better to get your water onto the cranberries by gravity 
and select a place where sand is available. Quite coarse sand is 
more likely to be free of clay than very fine and, therefore, is more 
desirable. In some parts of this state the sand beds have consider- 
able finely broken limestone in them, which might render them un- 
suitable for a covering for a cranberry bog. This may be easily 
determined by dropping some sulphuric acid (oil of vitriol) on the 
sand. If it effervesces, there is too much lime there. If there is 
much bog iron in the sand used, that may cause a failuretoo. As 
already pointed out, in some cases the sand may be dispensed with, 
but the water never. 
