ESSEX SOCIETY. 61 



vator must observe, first, whether the soil is of a loose, porous 

 character, easily permeable to water; and, second, whether there 

 will be an abundant supply of water in the driest season." If 

 this is the true mode of cranberry culture, then probably it has 

 seen its glory. But what have been the results under the water 

 system, and what upon the opposite one ? 



The New England Farmer for 1832, page 348, informs us that 

 Mr. Hall, of Barnstable, who "has been engaged for 20 years 

 in the cultivation of the cranberry, had averaged seventy bush- 

 els per acre for ten years, and some seasons had had one hun- 

 dred bushels." There the roots were undoubtedly kept " satu- 

 rated with water," because to give " an abundant supply of wa- 

 ter " is the universal practice in that county ; and yet the max- 

 imum quantity is "one hundred bushels per acre; " while Sir 

 Joseph Banks, in his garden, of course without extra water, pro- 

 duced 460 bushels to the acre ; and the chairman of the New 

 York Farmers' club gave it as his opinion, after his experiment 

 upon land " eighty to one hundred feet above the swamp," that 

 "five hundred dollars might be obtained for a full crop of anacre;" 

 Mr. Bates, of Bellingham, having gathered "four hundred bush- 

 els from an acre in a season, the plants had been transplanted 

 from low grounds to high." 



So far, then, as the experiments have proceeded, it is a most 

 gratifying fact, that the cheapest mode of cultivation proves to 

 be the most productive. If the Barnstable theory is wrong, there- 

 fore, it is high time the public mind were disabused. That this 

 fruit will bear so great, so violent a change of situation, without 

 damage, nay, with absolute improvement, is remarkable, is as- 

 tonishing truly ; but if it be true that it will, then surely we 

 ought to know it, and have the benefit of it. 



There is one other item in the Barnstable mode of culture 

 which requires attention. It is the use of sand. The Yarmouth 

 Register is as full and positive in relation to this, as it was respect- 

 ing water, and insists that there must be " from four to six inches 

 of sand :" " cover the surface with beach sand," — " if not, with 

 any sand that does not contain loam, or surface-soil." It is pos- 

 sible that the vines grow in spite of it, rather than in consequence 

 of it. Sir Joseph Banks says nothing of it ; the New York 



