56 ESSEX SOCIETY. 



reaching Fessenden, appear to be silent upon the subject. The 

 word " cranberry," whether relating to the cultivated or wild kind, 

 does not occur in Varlo's Husbandry, published in 17S5, nor in 

 Deane's New England Farmer, in 1795 ; neither is it to be found 

 in Nicholson's Farmer's Assistant, a valuable work, published 

 as late as 1S20. Other acids were substituted for the table, and 

 cranberries have not unfrequently been a drug in the market, at 

 a dollar or even fifty cents a bushel. Indeed, of so little conse- 

 quence is the culture of this, fruit considered ever since, that 

 town assessors, in reporting full statements of* fruits and other 

 esculent vegetables, agreeably to an order of the legislature, 

 though they can sometimes find room for even the diminutive 

 and short lived " whortleberry," and are known actually to 

 have returned " ten pounds of hops," as indication of the indus- 

 try of the town, find no room for cranberries ; and it does not 

 appear, from the returns, that more than 125 bushels have been 

 raised in the entire Commonwealth. And this withholding of 

 information on the part of those who are able to furnish it, pre- 

 sents not a greater obstacle in furnishing out a chapter on the 

 subject, than the singular conflict of opinions among those who 

 do speak and write. Let any one sit down to the purpose of 

 preparing himself to cultivate cranberries, especially upon high 

 land, shaping his plans according to the newspaper articles upon 

 the subject, as they have appeared for a few years past, and he 

 will probably find the whole subject appearing much as Dr. 

 Johnson found the English language, when he took his first sur- 

 vey of it, " copious without order, and energetic without rules." 

 Choice is to be made out of " boundless variety," and errors are 

 to be detected without any settled test. If any action of our 

 County Society shall prove effectual in eliciting information, 

 positive, definite, reliable information in relation to it, it will 

 render an essential service. 



That it would be for the interest of our farmers, who have 

 low or meadow land, capable of being flowed occasionally with 

 water, to cultivate cranberries, cannot admit of a doubt; because 

 in such situations, even under an administration of " slovenly 

 neglect," they often yield in abundance. It may be, indeed, 

 that the demand at present is not urgent. It may be that they 



