64 STA.TE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



One thing I want to say. You cannot raise cranberries in the 

 shade of grass or shrubs. We sometimes raise 160 barrels to the 

 acre ; that is business. Then if you undertake cranb' rry culture, 

 I advise you, if you have native vines, to plant a few of those 

 vines and see how they do. You might strike a fine variety. We 

 did that and found our native vines, grown from the beginning, 

 that they were prolific p oducers, but tremendously late and we did 

 not want them. Then there is tiiis thing. If you fail in cranberries 

 I do not see why 3'ou would not have a good English meadow left. 

 If you have seen a cranberry bog in its growing time, it is simply 

 a mass of mud covered entirely with vines. It is a sin in cra'iberry 

 culture to have a root or shrub, a leaf or tuft of grass on that brg. 

 You can measure your crop by the grass. 



Innumerable things grow on a cranberry bog. If you know the 

 slink weed or punk root, I can show you and affirm that punk root 

 or slink weed, that grows in the water and thiows out long flexible 

 branches and blossoms about August, that it is the sum of vege- 

 table villainies. It cost us ^1000 in our bog. It goes through 

 everything but an iron can or stone wall You wil find it on the 

 edges of your bogs. It is tough and will cut you if you take a 

 limb. If 3'ou throw it mto the water, into the steam, it will float 

 down, take root and live. 



An insect comes and lays eggs in the calyx of the cranberrj' 

 blossom. This egg is to be seen only with a powerful microscope, 

 right in the head where the flower is coming. Then when the egg 

 hatches there is a worm right in the head of the flower and it 

 develops with the new shoot ; so you can tell. You look for your 

 fire worm to come when you see the new shoots come in the spring. 

 This fellow comes out into his life, into the vitality of the coming 

 crop ; he comes and eats and weaves his web. In weaving bis web, 

 it draws together the 1( af of the cranberry and that causes the 

 lighter color on the under part of the leaf. 



Now comes the matter of war. When you find he is there, shut 

 down thj flume boaids and put the water on. Give him uine hours 

 under water and your enemy is dead ; dead like the pests of the 

 Egyptians. But there are two crops of these fellows. Tlie first 

 crop is small. When the first crop comes, then you must kill your 

 enemy, because, if you do not, wh' n he passes into the miller con- 

 dition he goes about multiplying himsdf, lays his eggs, then comes 

 a second crop ; and in three days after that second crop comes if 



