REPORT OF CRANBERRY SUBSTATION 

 FOR 1914. 



BY H. J. FRANKLIN. 



The year's investigations have been along lines previously followed, 

 except that the work with bees was discontinued and studies of the sea- 

 sonal development of the cranberry root system and of the passage of 

 water through peat were begun. 



Weather Observations. 



Records of conditions at the station bog were made as in previous 

 years, and minimum temperatures at other locations were also recorded, 

 together with whatever scattering data seemed to be of interest. The 

 readings of the maximum and minimum shelter and bog thermometers and 

 the amounts of precipitation were telegraphed to the office of the United 

 States Weather Bureau at Boston during the periods of frost danger. 

 Thermometers for taking soil temperatures were obtained, and records 

 of those temperatures and their changes under different conditions were 

 begun. The cranberry growang season as a whole was a cool one, there 

 being more frost than usual, especially in September, and also much 

 cloudiness throughout the summer. This caused the crop to ripen fully 

 two weeks later than usual. 



The total precipitation was distinctly below normal in spite of the 

 unusual amount of cloudiness, and the beginning of the frost period in 

 September found the ground rather unusually dry. The first cold night 

 came on September 9, and was followed by nine others in succession. On 

 some of these nights the minimum temperature at the low land ther- 

 mometer near the station bog was 22° below the early evening dew point. 

 Never before, by several degrees, had the station records shown any such 

 difference under such general weather conditions. In the opinion of the 

 writer, this extremely low temperature in comparison with the dew point 

 was due mainly to an unusual lack of moisture in the ground. The differ- 

 ence between the minimum readings of thermometers on the station bog 

 and on low land immediately adjacent was only 2° on the night of the 

 9th, and there was no difference the following night (10th). The tem- 

 peratures were not compared on the 11th and 12th, the bog being flooded. 

 On the 13th, the low land ran 6° colder than the bog minimum. As the 

 bog was flooded again on the 14th, the next comparison was made on the 

 15th, when there was found to be a difference of 5i/^°. Never before in 

 the records of four seasons had there appeared such a difference in the 

 minimum temperature of these two locations unless the bog was flooded, 

 — a fact which seemed to require explanation. As this difference did not 



