REPORT OF CRANBERRY SUBSTATION FOR 1916. 233 



The flooding and draining were done entirely at night. A few days later 

 the writer's attention was called to an injury that had resulted. He 

 visited the bog and found the buds and even the tops of the new growth of 

 the uprights on parts of it seriously hurt. The injury was mainly on the 

 central portion of the bog, and centered around a large pile of ashes left 

 from the burning of stumps and brush when it was built. Vines at con- 

 siderable distances from this pile showed at most but slight injury, except 

 in a streak parallel to the end of the dike toward which the wind had blown 

 during the flooding. Leaves of bushes which had hung down into or stood 

 in the water of the reflow, around the margin of the bog, showed a marked 

 and unusual burning injury, and they bore traces of a white powder which 

 appeared to be ash that had floated in the water from the pile at the cen- 

 ter of the bog. The situation as a whole led all those who observed it to 

 conclude that the ash pile had caused the trouble. The pile was estimated 

 to be 2^ feet deep over an area 25 feet square and about 6 inches deep over 

 another area 75 feet square. Piles of ashes on bogs are probably danger- 

 ous because of the lye leached from them. Many unaccountable spots 

 where vines refuse to grow thriftily on bogs may be the result of effects 

 remaining from ashes left from the burning of brush piles. It is well known 

 that alkalies in the soil are inimical to cranberry growth. 



A portable sectional bridge devised by the writer for use in carting ber- 

 ries across bog ditches proved valuable at the station bog this year. With 

 its help it was easy to cart berries without killing the vines in tracks by 

 repeated passages of the wheels over the same ground. A light truck 

 probably could be used to great advantage with this bridge, though the 

 writer has tried only a horse and wagon with it so far. At any rate, it will 

 make it possible to much reduce the present expense of removing berries 

 from bogs. It may be seen at the station bog at any time during the cran- 

 berry season. 



With many Cape Cod bogs a desirable reduction in the cost of resanding 

 could probably be effected by the development of a sanding rim around the 

 margin. ' With such a rim the sand for any part of the bog could always 

 be brought from the nearest point. The rim should be wide enough for a 

 good roadway, and it should be built level with the bog surface, so that 

 it may serve as a sanitary catch-basin for floating berries and leaves. If, 

 as the results of some of the writer's storage ex-periments seem to indicate, 

 the berries from the marginal portion of a bog, other conditions being the 

 same, are usually of poorer keeping quality than those from the center, 

 the condition may naturally be laid to the continual deposition of diseased 

 cranberry material floating on the surface of repeated flowages and wafted 

 to the margin by the wind. Thus the possible value of a marginal catch- 

 basin as suggested becomes evident. The sanding rim would also have 

 some value as fire protection for a bog. 



As the sanding rim becomes sufficiently widened by the removal of 

 sand in repeated resandings, the bog can be gradually enlarged by planting 



