134: HOW TO GET A FARM, 



dirty work, wet feet and muddy clothes, but few 

 undertakings will pay better. 



It is known that several counties in &quot;New Jersey 

 contain thousands of acres of cranberry lands, which 

 annually produce abundant crops of fruit. In 

 numerous locations the owners of the land receive 

 no part of the crop. The whole region is but thinly 

 settled, and there are but few clearings among the 

 dense pine forests which cover a large portion of 

 the ground. Most of these have been made by pine- 

 hawkers and charcoal-burners, who support life 

 under great privations, and who rear families in 

 total ignorance of schools or churches. All round 

 them lay immense cranberry grounds, without a 

 panel of fencing on thousands of acres. From time 

 immemorial these squalid families have gathered 

 the fruit for their own benefit, and disposed of it at 

 the nearest stores. They swarm among the swamps 

 during the picking season, so that the owner gets 

 little or none of the crop. If residing at a distance, 

 as is generally the case, he has no chance whatever. 

 Even when within a few miles of his own swamp, 

 he receives no portion except by sufferance. The 

 cranberry grounds of the region have been so long 

 abandoned to these indiscriminate inroads, that the 

 annual plunder of the crop has grown to be con 

 sidered a public right. In some places, the owner 

 may receive a barrel or two as a gift, in others he 

 is permitted to send in a few pickers for his own use. 

 But it would be a dangerous experiment for him to 

 undertake suddenly and forcibly to suppress these 

 depredations a general mutiny would be the result. 



