60 THE CRANBERRY. 



this should be done even if at considerable expense. The sand 

 used should preferably be rather coarse, but it must be free from 

 clay or loam, as anything that encourages the taking of the surface 

 of the bed is injurious. This sand offers a good place for the 

 plants to root, is easily cultivated, and experience shows that it 

 conduces to fruitfulness. Yet there are many very fruitful peat 

 beds that have never been sanded. If a peat bed is to be used 

 without sand the surface should be exposed to frost one year 

 before planting or it will be likely to bake hard, but after one sea- 

 son's frost it becomes loose and fine. 



Drainage and Flowage. The method of securing these 

 conditions will depend much on the situation of the land. The 

 drainage is generally best accomplished by digging an open ditch 

 four or more feet wide through the center of the land ; a smaller 

 ditch should completely enclose the land, which should be divided 

 into beds by lateral ditches, about five rods apart. Where springs 

 are met with they must be connected with a ditch. 



Importance of Water. The flowage may sometimes be 

 controlled from a pond above the bog, or by a brook or creek 

 running through it. Every reasonable effort should be made to 

 secure and control water for flowage for the following reasons : 

 (1) Without a good water supply bogs often get very dry in 

 periods of protracted drouth, to the great injury of the plants, and 

 occasionally peat or moss bogs get on fire and burn up, destroying 

 all the work done. A bog once on fire can seldom be saved except 

 by flooding. (2) The water kept over the plants in the spring will 

 serve to retard the blossoming until danger of frost is past, and 

 will protect the fruit from early frosts in autumn. (3) Beds that 

 are kept under water until late in the spring are seldom seriously 

 injured by insects. (4) Beds do best when protected by a water 

 covering in winter. If not thus protected they may be seriously 

 injured. 



Where there is considerable fall in the bed it is customary to 

 finish it at several grades and to put in as many dams, but where 

 there is not more than two or three feet of fall one dam is quite 

 sufficient. Dams should be made strong and have sluice ways 

 large enough to let off all the water liable to drain through them. 



About Flowing. All that is required in flowing a bog is 

 sufficient water to cover the vines ; they should be covered about 

 the first of November, and as deep as they are to remain covered 

 during the winter. The freezing of the vines in the ice does not 

 hurt them, but raising the level of the water in the bed after they 

 are frozen, and thus raising the ice and tearing the vines out of the 

 ground, is where the great danger lies. To avoid this the sluice- 

 ways should be kept sufficiently open to allow any surplus water 

 to pass off. 



The first two seasons the water should be kept on the vines 

 until the last of April, but after that, or when the bog is in condi- 

 tion to bear, the water should be kept on until the last of May or 



