62 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



We have this land that uever was worth a dollar to anybody, 

 which has become the most valuable land on the Cape. These 

 swamps, we have, not ravines like }Ours with your rivers. I sup- 

 pose you have these swamps in Maine ; two, three, or ten acres 

 with a bottom of muck. They go in there wherever they can 

 drain their bogs. K you cannot drain your bog down to from 

 twelve to forty inches below th*^ surface, you cannot get the body 

 of water to apply to the vegetation in the cranb rry bog and it will 

 beat you. 



I suppose you have swamps here that you can drain. I will take 

 this room for a cranl erry bog. If it is covered with bushes or 

 trees, — for they sometimes cut down whole forests, — you must dig 

 up the roots. You clear your bog in that way and your good sense 

 would show you how to make a level surface of it. If 3'ou are 

 going to have water you must have a dam on the stream Then 

 after level ing your bog j^ou dig a ditch from the upland about 

 three rods wide ; cut into sections of three or four rods wide, 

 according to the amount of drainage 3'ou want. That divides the 

 bog into sections. 



Supposing, in these lowlands you have spi'ings in the edges of 

 your bogs ; you must cut off the spring water by running an upland 

 ditch. So far as the culture of cranberries is concerned, you must 

 make the bog so you can raise a crop of corn on the soil, and so 

 you can cover it with water for the reasons I have given you. So 

 much for the ditches. 



It the upland has no springs, it is an open question whether an 

 upland ditch pays. If 3'ou do not dig up the grasses the}' will 

 trouble you. 



The next thing is sand. You have got to cover that whole bog 

 with sand. Wh}'? In the first place, I do not know anything 

 about cranberry culture down below a certain point ; but I know 

 practically, you have got to have sand. It furnishes aomething to 

 the vines that muck does not, nor loam ; because you might go to 

 work and try to avoid the expense of sanding your bog ; then raise 

 your cranberry vines. Y'ou would find your vines grew luxuriantly, 

 but it would be all vines and no fruit. Sand gives warmth. Sand 

 keeps in condition, in due proportions the vines and berries. Sand 

 is to the cranberry vine, what right medicine is to the human body. 

 Sand 3'ou must have in cranberry growth. Then it serves as a 

 mulch to keep the moisture in a dry spell. Y''ou go into a side hill 



