ESSAY ON THE CRANBERRY. 117 



ter, and insists that there must be "from four to six inches of sand," — 

 "cover the surface with beach sand" — "if not, with any sand that 

 does not contain loam, or surface soil." It is possible that the vines 

 grow in spite of it, rather than in consequence of it. Sir Joseph 

 Banks says nothing of it; the New York club never heard of it, 

 judging from the reported cases. Mr. Cole was once told that in a 

 certain case there was some, l)ut that it was under the loam or sur- 

 face soil, a thing to be excluded at Barnstable altogether. There 

 was none near the vines at South Hadley, as Mr. Ripley declared, 

 that town being some sixty miles from the sea. Capt. Low in his lot 

 used sand on a part of it, having been led to it, by the public prints, 

 but there is no perceptible difference in the appearance of the vines 

 where it was used and where not. The inference is therefore irre- 

 sistible, that sand is not indispensable certainly, and probably not 

 necessary at all. 



But it is time to consider the second inquiry, viz : whether it 

 would be profitable to cultivate cranberries upon high land, and it 

 cannot take much time to answer it. If the minimium quantity 

 with Mr. Hall was seventy bushels per acre, and j\Ir. Bates has eas- 

 ily procured four hundred bushels, and if according to Mr. Coles, 

 two hundred bushels is a medium crop, what other vegetable at even 

 one dollar a bushel begins to compare with it for profit ? For it 

 must be recollected that no manure is necessary from beginning to 

 end, and after the vines once cover the ground (and this appears to 

 be in from three to five years,) no farther labor is necessary other 

 than that of gathering the berries, and that at an expense of about 

 twenty cents per bushel. All cultivators however lay it down as 

 important that the cattle should be kept off, and not allowed to tram- 

 ple upon them. Here there will necessarily be a loss of fall feed, 

 necessary to be taken into the account in making up the bill of profit 

 and loss. 



It may be properly stated too on the authority of Mr. Worth, a 

 member of the New York club, that "the cranberry of Russia is lar- 

 iger than that of England, but both of them are scarcely half the 

 size of those raised by Mr. Bates, procured by transplanting from 

 low grounds to high, and of much inferior flavor." If Mr. Worth is 

 accurate in this statement, and there is no known reason for doubting 

 it, it is not extravagant to suppose that even foreign markets may 

 open for the American Cranberry. Might it not have been a 



