874 



CRANBERRY 



Without an ample supply of water, cranberry-culture 

 is so hazardous as hardly to be worth undertaking. 

 The building of the dams is the first step necessary 

 for the improvement of a bog. A foundation for these 

 should be made by digging a trench entirely through 

 the peat, even if it should be 8 feet or more thick, to 

 the clean sand, and this trench should be filled with 

 sand free from all foreign material; above this founda- 

 tion, embankments are built of clean sand and faced 

 up with sods of live turf to prevent their being washed 

 by the waves of the lake formed. The dams should be 

 sufficiently high to flood the higher parts of the bog 

 a foot deep, which will frequently make the water in 

 the deeper parts 3 to 6 feet or more in depth. Gates 

 or flumes must be constructed at the lowest point in 

 these dams to provide for drawing the water off the 

 bog and provision made for surface drainage. The 

 latter is generally accomplished by opening the natural 

 stream, if there should be one, or by digging an open 

 ditch through the natural drainage center of the piece 



1088. A Massachusetts cranberry bog. Picking the fruit. 



of land being improved. Side ditches should be dug 

 leading into the stream, or main ditch, in sufficient num- 

 ber to drain off all surface water; they may be made 

 from 1 to 3 feet deep, according to the character of the 

 land to be drained. A reservoir built above the bog is 

 very desirable in facilitating control of the water. In 

 frosty Wisconsin it is considered almost necessary to 

 have three times the area of the bog in reservoir to 

 insure the crops. If a bog is situated on a stream sub- 

 ject to high water, provision must be made for keeping 

 the flood water from the bog, as the crop would be 

 destroyed if it were flooded during blooming time or 

 seriously injured by flooding at any time during the 

 active growing season. Winter flooding of cranberry 

 bogs is to prevent heaving and winter-killing. The water 

 is put on about the first of December or after the vines 

 have become thoroughly reddened by cold weather. 



Cranberry bogs, being always lower than the sur- 

 rounding land, are peculiarly liable to damage by frost, 

 serious loss frequently occurring when an ordinary 

 farmer would not dream of danger,and a good supply 

 of water is the only preventive that has been found 

 efficient. The time of starting growth in the spring may 

 be controlled by the time the water is drained off, and 

 the earlier spring frosts may so be avoided while an 



ample supply of water permits reflooding when a later 

 severe frost threatens. Reflooding about the first of 

 June, provided the water has not been withdrawn 

 earlier than May 5 to 10, will also furnish protection 

 from a number of damaging insects and will not injure 

 the crop, provided care is taken that the water does 

 not stand on any part of the bog more than forty- 

 eight hours. If a bog should become seriously infested 

 with insects later in the season, it is occasionally profit- 

 able to sacrifice what remains of the year's crop and 

 clear the bog of insects by flooding. This sometimes 

 results in a greatly increased yield the following year. 

 Damage from a light frost in the fall, before the ber- 

 ries are picked, may be prevented by raising the water 

 in the ditches and about the roots of the vines. Protec- 

 tion from a heavy frost requires covering the plants 

 with water, but this will cause immature berries to 

 rot and should be done with great caution or the 

 damage from water may be greater than it would have 

 been from frost. During summer the irrigation of 



the crop is accom- 

 plished by holding the 

 water low or high in the 

 ditches, as the varying 

 season may demand. 



Preparation and tillage. 



Before cranberries 

 are planted, the land 

 must be cleared of all 

 its natural growth, the 

 stumps and roots re- 

 moved and the ground 

 leveled to a greater or 

 less extent. The more 

 nearly level a bog is 

 made, so that proper 

 drainage is provided 

 for, the more economi- 

 cal it is in the use of 

 water and the easier it is 

 to provide the optimum 

 amount of irrigation 

 during the summer. 

 The first cost of such 

 perfect leveling, how- 

 ever, may be prohibi- 

 tive or it may require 

 the removal of all the 

 good peaty soil over 

 a considerable area, 

 leaving nothing but pure sand in which the cranberries 

 will not grow well. In many places, the removal of the 

 natural growth may best be accomplished by cutting 

 off the tops of the bushes and trees so that they will 

 not extend above the surface of the water and flood- 

 ing for two years, thus killing all vegetation. While this 

 flooding entails loss of time, it is much easier and cheaper 

 to clear away the dead roots and stumps than live 

 ones, and when no sand is applied to the surface, as is 

 the rule in New Jersey, it greatly lessens the expense 

 of keeping the bog free from weeds for there are no 

 live roots in the ground to send up suckers. In some 

 places, as in most of Wisconsin, this method of drown- 

 ing out is impracticable, because the surface soil, in 

 which are the roots of all the living plants, will separate 

 from the more perfectly decomposed peat below and 

 rise to the surface of the water in floating islands mak- 

 ing death to vegetation by drowning impossible. In 

 such situations the ground must be turfed and all roots 

 and stumps grubbed out. In either case the roots and 

 stumps are best disposed of by piling in heaps and 

 burning. In Massachusetts, it is the custom to cover 

 the cleared and leveled bog with 3 to 5 inches of sand, 

 which makes it still easier to keep the bogs free from 

 weeds and acts as a moisture-retaining mulch for the 



