114 ESSAY ON THE CRANBERRY. 



from loio grounds to high. "His success," said Oen. C, "was? 

 complete ; he gathered from one acre about four hundred bushels of 

 cranberries in one season.''^ The Chairman spoke of an experiment 

 of his own. He sai4 ho "took from swamps on Gen. Johnson's 

 place, some cranberry plants, and planted them on ground eighty 

 or a hundred feet above the swamp ; they thrived, and the fruit 

 was so close together, that one could hardly put the finger in, with 

 out touching the cranberries.^^ He afterwards remarked that the 

 soil was loamy and that he "watered them well." It does not ap- 

 pear whether he tried any without watering, but boasts of "not 

 losing ten out of the one hundred and fifty plants." It Avill be in- 

 teresting to know the fact, that in the experiment made by Capt. 

 Low, of Essex, although he set out near thirteen hundred plants, 

 (on soils,) yet without any artificial watering, he lost not one. 



Thus much for the published accounts that have come to hand. 

 An intelligent gentleman from South Hadley, Mr. Ripley, states 

 orally, that for ten years (the time of his residence in that town) he 

 has been famihan? with a spot of cranberries, growing upon a dry, 

 hungry knoll of sandy loam, bearing plentifully every other year, 

 and some every year. He remarked that when the soil had been a 

 little broken, the runners were more vigorous and in better bearing 

 than when the sward was firm. Mr. R. also states that Mr. Robert 

 Brainard, of the same town, transplanted cranberry sods from the 

 meadow into his tillage laud in June last, (1847) and they have al- 

 ready produced the full grown cranberry. He is so gratified and 

 surprised at this result, that he intends to enlarge his lot without de- 

 lay. As evidence of the nature of the soil, Mr. Ripley states that 

 Indian corn was growing in the same field, and potatoes directly 

 along side." 



Abel Burnham, of Essex, exhibited at the cattle show in Lynn, 

 in September last, a handsome specim en of cranberries, raised up- 

 on sixty-four rods of high land, — land which is well known to have 

 been formerly cultivated with Indian corn. As evidence of the har- 

 dy and almost indestructible nature of this plant, it is said by per- 

 sons upon whom the utmost reliance may be placed, that in one case 

 at least, the cranberry vine appears to grow in a bed of the purest 

 gravel. 



The last case of which it is proposed to speak, though others are 

 by no means wanting, is that of the experiment of Capt. Winthrap 



