244 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



CRANBERRIES. 



The following cominuiiication has been received in addition 

 to the statement given below : — 



C. L. Flint, Esq., Secretary, S^c. 



Dear Sir : — My attention was first called to the subject by a 

 gentleman from Natick, who stated to me that the best cran- 

 berry meadows in that vicinity were worth from $1,000 to 

 $1,300 per acre, which struck me with some astonishment. I 

 then looked at my own swamps, and could see no good reason 

 why they could not be made as good cranberry-meadow as any 

 other, and accordingly went to work and built a dam to flow the 

 swamp to kill the bushes. After flowing three years, I took off 

 the water, and set from one to one and a half acres with cran- 

 berry vines; this was done in 1846. "We found at that time a 

 few beds of native vines, which have spread to be equal to one- 

 fourth or one-third of the transplanted. The cost of the whole 

 operation, we think, could not have exceeded $50. And now 

 for the proceeds : — 



In the year 1851, our crop sold for $70; in 1852, for $300; 

 in 1853, for $380. 



I have no doubt but there is swamp land enough in Massa- 

 chusetts, suitable for raising cranberries, to raise enough, at the 

 prices they have brought for the last two years, to come to 

 more than all the corn, grain and apples raised in Massachu- 

 setts. I will here add the remarks of two gentlemen in regard 

 to glutting the market with the article ; the first a city man, 

 who said, the inhabitants of Boston and New York have not' 

 as yet, begun to get the taste of cranberries. The second, a 

 farmer and nurseryman, who said, if I had ten acres, and you 

 had ten acres, and every man between you and me, and every 

 man between you and Canada line had ten acres each, and 

 they all bore two hundred bushels to the acre, it would not 

 glut the market. 



Yours, respectfully, 



Addison Flint. 



North Reading, February 9, 1854. 



