CRANBERRIES. 107 



" On one-half an acre the vines were set in the spring of 

 1862, and on the other quarter of an acre in the spring of 1863. 

 In 1865 I picked 95 bushels of berries ; in 1866, 11 bushels ; 

 in 1867, 108 bushels. 



" In the fall of 1865 my vines looked very finely, but during 

 the winter of 1865-6 they were very much damaged, by what 

 or how I cannot say ; and, in the summer following, the fruit, 

 upon most of what were alive and blossomed, was destroyed by 

 the berry-worm." 



To Mr. Hadley is awarded the second premium, $10. 



Mr. Stetson entered for premium about sixty-five square rods, 

 upon which vines were set in 1864, '65 and '66, and from which 

 he harvested, the present season, nine bushels of cranberries. 

 This plot, together with an adjoining piece, containing about one 

 hundred and sixty-three rods, he has changed from an old and 

 very rough cedar swamp bottom to its present condition, at a 

 cost of nearly ten years' continuous labor. In effecting this he 

 has not only cleared the surface of very large quantities of 

 bushes, stumps and trees, but with his wheelbarrow and shovel 

 has covered the whole with gravel, from one to two feet in 

 thickness, removing for this purpose almost a mountain of earth. 



His selection of a location seems to have been an unfortunate 

 one. Portions of his swamp, at the commencement, appeared 

 as if afloat, undulating perceptibly beneath the tread, and the 

 whole was but slightly above a permanent water-level. To 

 obtain an even and in his judgment a sufficiently elevated sur- 

 face, he began by applying gravel in such quantities as to place 

 the original peat bed far below the reach of the vine roots. In 

 this condition it was evidently as unfit for the growth of cran- 

 berries, aside from additional moisture, as the base of the hill 

 from which the gravel was taken. With an indomitable and 

 characteristic perseverance, he has endeavored to overcome this 

 difficulty by covering the gravel bed thus formed with a layer 

 of peat and swamp moss, and this again with another layer of 

 gravel in which his vines have been set. But this layer of peat 

 and moss, although some six inches in thickness when first 

 applied, must, under the pressure of an equal thickness of gravel 

 above, and through the decomposition of the moss, be soon 

 reduced to a very thin stratum. If, in this condition, his vines 

 ever yield abundantly, it will be made certain that cranberries 



