162 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



FRUIT CULTURE. 



ESSEX. 



Report of the Committee. 



Cranberries. — For the committee on experiments in the 

 cultivation of cranberries, I report that no cranberry grounds 

 have been offered for their inspection. This failure is not 

 owing to any lack of attention to such culture, but rather to 

 the late spring frosts, which damaged alike the crops and the 

 cultivator's hopes for premiums. 



One of your committee — John D. Hildreth, of Manchester, 

 who has taken the first premiums the last two years — has, 

 at my request, kindly furnished me with some notes in regard 

 to the failure of his crop this season. The facts which .he 

 presents must be interesting to cranberry growers, and I take 

 pleasure in presenting them in this report, in place of any 

 extended remarks of mine. 



Mr. Hildreth says : " I let the water off the 10th of May. 

 The vines soon began to grow finely — I never saw them look 

 better. At night, on the 24th, I found the mercury was down 

 within a few degrees of freezing. I commenced lighting my 

 fires about nine o'clock, all around the meadow, and kept them 

 burning through the night. The smoke went up in straight 

 columns about forty feet, and there rested like a cloud. Per- 

 haps if there had been less blaze, the smoke might have come 

 down lower. The frost was as severe close beside the fire as 

 any where. There was not one fruit bud (which had then 

 started,) left — the ruin was complete. I afterwards put down 

 the gate, and kept the vines nearly covered until the loth of 

 June. I now think the best way is to draw off part of the 

 water before the middle of May, leaving only just enough to 

 cover the vines, until the 10th of June. The water will get 

 too warm in the day to freeze at night, if there is frost, and I 

 find il will not injure the vines." 



It appears from the facts here stated that burning fires afford 

 no protection to vines, unless the state of the atmosphere be 

 such that the smoke will settle in a cloud very low. Smoke is, 

 perhaps, less likely to settle thus in the clearest and coldest 



