CRANHKRRV GROVVINCi 23 



winter. 



Some bogs can be flowed only for tlie winter and some are nut flowed 

 at all. They generally are not so profitable as those with plenty of water, 

 bnt some of them pay well under good management. 



Sand and mud wash into the ditches and growing weeds and floating 

 materials help to fill them so they must be cleaned out every few years. 



Irrigation 



Bogs are too wet oftener than too dry. They do, however, sometimes 

 suffer from drouth, the berries being reduced in number and size and the 

 vines dying in severe cases. Practice varies in bog irrigation. Occasional 

 light flooding for a few hours at night followed by complete withdrawal 

 of the water is perhaps better than holding the ditches full a long time in 

 the growing season. This is certainly true where density of the soil makes 

 it difficult to irrigate from the ditches. Watering with a sprinkling system, 

 though costly, is effective for both irrigation and frost protection and will 

 be done more on cranberry bogs. 



The Use of Sand 



As the cranberry roots form a dense growth in the sand over the peat, 

 they become soil bound, and resanding gives them more soil to grow in. 

 Largely on this account, resanded vines are generally thriftier and more 

 productive than those not resanded. Moss and fallen cranberry leaves are 

 poor conductors of heat and bogs not resanded regularly are commonly 

 well covered with such material and so very liable to frost injury. 



The oftener resanding is done the more it protects against frost, the 

 girdler, the green spanworm, and the tip worm; but bog conditions should 

 determine its frequency. Bogs with little water for reflooding should be 

 resanded every other year or every year lightly; those with plenty of 

 water for frost and insect flooding and with a moderate vine growth 

 should be resanded every third or fourth year; and those with ample water 

 supplies and heavy vines never should be resanded. From a quarter of 

 an inch to an inch of sand, according to circumstances, is put on at a 

 time, being spread with square-pointed shovels. Experienced men are 

 needed for this job. 



Sanding may be done most cheaply in the winter (Fig. 19 A) with 

 favorable weather, but there is not enough ice for this on the Cape in 

 more than one year in three. Considerable injury is done to the vines 

 by resanding in the early spring and it increases rapidly as the season 

 advances; resanding should not continue after May 5. Help is generally 

 more plentiful in the fall and better attention can be given this work then. 

 Whenever it is done, it usually reduces the following crop noticeably. 

 The tops of the vines must be raked up out of the sand wherever they 

 get covered too much with it. Ice resanding is done mostly with trucks; 

 spring and fall resanding, with wheelbarrows (Fig. 19 B and C) or cars 

 (Fig. 13). The cost of properly applying a third of an inch of sand varies 

 from $15 to $50 an acre. 



All stones must be screened from the sand before it is used, or collected 

 from the bog afterward, else they will bruise the knees of pickers and be 

 gathered with the berries in scooping. Bog gang screens, 6 feet by 3 feet 

 or larger, and individual wheelbarrow screens are used for this, a three- 

 (|uarter inch or inch mesh being best. 



