THE CEANBEEEY AND ITS ALLIES. 157 



might be expected to feel some surprise on learning, for 

 the first time, that the fruit thus constantly identified with 

 foreign associations is not only indigenous to our own 

 country, but very abundant in many parts of it. The sur- 

 prise would, however, be mingled perhaps with another 

 ieeling, not very complimentary to their rural compatriots, 

 on finding further that our immense imports, amounting, 

 some years ago, to as much as 30,000 gallons per annum, 

 paying a duty of Qd. per gallon, are not so much a supple- 

 ment to native supplies as a substitute for them, and 

 that while Russian boors and American settlers find a pro- 

 fitable employment in collecting cranberries for the Eng- 

 lish markets, our own poor villagers suffer vast quantities 

 of these berries year by year to rot ungathered on British 

 bushes. In Scotland especially is this the case, and their 

 countryman, M'Intosh, justly deplores that some among 

 the more enlightened class do not direct the attention of 

 the Scotch peasantry to the wastefully neglected advan- 

 tages Nature has afforded them with regard to this fruit, 

 and incite their industry by pointing out the best markets 

 and easiest mode of transport. How much might be gained 

 in this way may be judged from an old account of Long- 

 ton in Cumberland, where cranberry-gathering, being un- 

 dertaken in earnest, the sale of them amounted ordinarily 

 to 20 or 30 on each market-day throughout the season, 

 which extended over five or six weeks, many people there 

 even making wine from them. It is true that cranberries 

 (which, therefore, in Gerard's time bore the name of "fen- 

 berries," and are termed by the Dutch "fen grapes") 

 thrive only in damp and swampy ground, and that in a 

 country where population is always increasing and im- 

 provement progressing, bogs and marshes are by no means 

 desirable features, nor yet likely to be permanent ones ; but 

 so long as soil of this kind is in existence, there is so much 

 the more reason for turning it to the best account by 

 making use of what it does produce, or, if not brought forth 

 spontaneously, of planting it with what it is fitted to pro- 

 duce ; for wherever there is water there cranberries will 

 thrive, and many witnesses depose to the fact that, with 

 very little cost or trouble, a cranberry plantation may be 



