ESSEX SOCIETY. 63 



But, without anticipating any conjectured market abroad, there 

 is no reason to believe that the home demand can be at present 

 fully met. Let the public but once know that a supply of this 

 delicious berry can be always and easily had, aye, and be as ea- 

 sily cultivated as the apple itself, if not more so, and the demand 

 would soon outrun the supply. Most families are compelled to 

 rely for half the year upon apples for sauce and pies ; and the 

 pickled cucumber, indigestible and dangerous as it is, and often 

 thrown away, as it always ought to be, is retained upon the 

 farmer's table, merely because it is the only thing of the kind 

 known that can be kept through the year; while the voluptuary 

 adds "Spanish Olives," "Walnut Ketchup," and what not, 

 more indigestible and dangerous still. What an opportunity to 

 bring forward and substitute the pure acid of the cranberry ! 

 For culinary purposes, it must be cheaper. Apples are held to be 

 unfit for pie or sauce, till every element of the natural flavor almost 

 is destroyed or neutralized by the rose-water and the spice. But 

 giA'-e to cranberries the quantum sufficit of one single thing, 

 " sweet cane," and they never tire. The amount of acid in a 

 single bushel, is not to be overlooked, and the augmented amount 

 especially, when diluted for the taste. When these and other 

 familiar facts are considered, the value and advantage of the 

 fruit in question will begin to be felt and known. 



Let as many then as will, go forth, "weeping," if they must, 

 but go forth bearing seed, and I can but think that, in due sea- 

 son, they will return bringing their sheaves with them. The 

 number of those who will continue to doubt whether the vines 

 will "outlive the first year or two," or who will wait to know 

 whether they will survive the winter without having "their 

 roots saturated in water," will always be so large, that the en- 

 terprising will find an open field and fair play. 



Our country consumes eighteen hundred thousand dollars worth 

 of foreign fruit a year; and of the single spice called pepper, we 

 use a good three million dollars worth a year. With such facts 

 as these before us, can any one for a moment fear an over-sup- 

 ply of the fruit, the cultivation of which it has been the object 

 of this essay to recommend 1 



