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to yield a large income with but a trifling expense. We think 

 well of Mr. Stiles's method of ploughing his meadow in pre- 

 paring it for the planting of the vines ; there are many 

 advantages resulting from it. But there are meadows that 

 cannot be ploughed ; on such cranberries can be grown with 

 much profit without ploughing. We know of several such 

 meadows, one in particular, on which so much as a peck of 

 cranberries had never grown since the recollection of the oldest 

 man living. Some ten or twelve years ago this was drained 

 by ditching ; the peat taken from the ditches paid the expense 

 of it. A small flume was built so as to flow the meadow in 

 the winter to the depth of about four feet ; this cost but about 

 five dollars. The third year after this work was done, the 

 vines without planting had grown so as to bear twenty bushels 

 of cranberries. Tliis is but a small piece of meadow, and 

 from that time to the present the average yield has been from 

 twenty to forty bushels per year. We could name other 

 meadows that have yielded a large income without any planting 

 of vines. But perhaps we have already gone beyond our 

 proper bounds, and we will close our remarks by saying that, 

 as we understand it, the question of premium in this case 

 belongs to the trustees to decide at their meeting in November, 

 and we can therefore only give our opinion regarding Mr, 

 Stiles's merits in the case. We consider him worthy of much 

 praise for the pains he has taken in his experiments, and we 

 think he is entitled to a premium for his successful cultivation 

 of the cranberry on the twenty square rods which he has 

 entered for premium. 



Chairman — Gilbert Conant. 



STATEMENT OF HIRA5I A. STILES. 



MiDDLETON, November, 1873. 



STATEMENT CONCERNING A CROP OF CRANBERRIES. 



The portion of land upon whicli the cranberries grew which 

 I offer for premium, contains twenty rods. It was ploughed to 

 the depth of ten inches in September, 1866, using the Michigan 

 sod plough. The land previous to ploughing produced from 



