116 ESSAY ON THE CRANBERRY. 



yard, the cultivator must observe first, whether the soil is of a loose, 

 porous character, easily permeable to water; and second whether 

 there will be an abundant supply of water in the driest season." If 

 this is the true mode of cranberry culture, then probably it has seen 

 its glory. But what have been the results under the water system, 

 and,. what upon the opposite one ? 



The New England Farmer for 1832, page 348 informs us that 

 Mr. Hall of Barnstable who "has been engaged for twenty years in 

 the cultivation of the cranberry, had averaged seventy bushels per 

 acre for ten years, and some seasons had had one hundred bushels.'* 

 There the roots Were undoubtedly kept "saturated with water,*' be- 

 cause to give "an abundant supply of water" is the universal prac- 

 tice in that county ; and yet the maximium quantity is "one hun- 

 dred bushels per acre;" while Sir Joseph Banks, in his garden, of 

 course without extra water, produced 460 bushels to the acre ; and 

 the chairman of the New York Farmer's'club gave it as his opinion, 

 after his experiment upon land "eighty to one hundred feet above 

 the swamp," that five hundred dollars might be obtained for a full 

 crop of an acre;" Mr. Bates of Bellingham having gathered "four 

 hundred bushels from an acre in a season, the plants had been trans- 

 planted from low grounds to high." * 



So far then as the experiments have proceeded it is a most grati- 

 fying fact that the cheapest mode of cultivation proves to be the most 

 productive. If the Barnstable theory is wrong therefore, it is high 

 time the public mind were disabused. That this fruit will bear so 

 great, so violent a change of situations without damage, nay with ab- 

 solute improvement, is remarkable, is astonishing truly ; but if it be 

 true that it will, then surely we ought to know it and have the bene- 

 fit of it. 



There is one other item in the Barnstable mode of culture which 

 requires attention. It is the use of sand. The Yarmouth Regis- 

 ter is as full and positive in relation to this as it was respecting wa- 



* James N. Lovell gives the Barnstable County Agricultural Society a state- 

 ment of his mode of cultivating cranberries. He says, that in 1844 he set out cran- 

 berries on what had been a cedar swamp, covered over with beach sand. They have 

 done well, and the average yield the past season, was a bushel and a half to the 

 square rod, or 240 to the acre. Ho kept the land flooded with water till the 15th of 

 April, each year. He speaks of a worm that has sometimes attacked the vines, and 

 to destroy which, he recommends sowing on them salt or ashes about the middle of 

 July, while wet with dew, at the rate of a bushel to 40 rods. 



