158 



Cultivation of Cranberries. — A Long Short-Cake. Vol. VIII. 



ciple of hereditary predisposition been ap- 

 plied to any of these anomalies 1 — Youatt 

 on the Horse. 



Cultivation of Cranberries. 



A NUMBER of gentlemen have made inqui- 

 ries at our office, in regard to the best mode 

 of propagating this much valued fruit. But 

 very few experiments have yet been made, 

 to our knowledge, on its cultivation, though 

 there seems to be but little doubt, that cran- 

 berries of some kind or other may be grown 

 in almost any soil. 



The common cranberry of our Middlesex 

 and Norfolk county meadows, has become 

 famous, half the world over, without any 

 aid from closet farmers, or from chemists 

 This kind of fruit seems to delight in wet 

 grounds, and we incline to guess it will not 

 flourish greatly in any other soils. The 

 vines can be easily transplanted, and the 

 task would not be Herculean, to fill up an 

 acre of soft meadow with plants enough for 

 the whole. 



Were we to engage in this business, we 

 would use sharp spades and take up sods six 

 or eight inches square, from meadows where 

 the vines are already too thick. About 2,000 

 of these would be enough for an acre ; they 

 would then be half as thick as hills of corn, 

 and would soon spread so as to cover the 

 ground. It will not hurt an old bed to thin 

 them out. We are satisfied, that digging 

 among the old vines will aid them, as dig- 

 ging among strawberry vines will improve 

 the strawberry harvest. 



Rakes are now made on purpose to gather 

 the fruit, and though these rakes tear the 

 vines in pieces annually, yet the product 

 has been much increased by raking. A near 

 neighbour of our own, began but a few years 

 ago, to rake a little patch of one-fourth of an 

 acre. He obtained 12 bushels only, the first 

 season; the next year 18, then 25, and so 

 on, till his last harvest on this fourth of an 

 acre, was 65 bushels of handsome cranber- 

 ries ; we saw them on his barn floor. We 

 have yet heard of no one who has injured 

 his cranberry vines by raking. 



In regard to flowing, we need more expe- 

 riments ; the water may generally be kept 

 over the vines till the middle of May. It 

 should be kept on as long as possible, to 

 keep the blossoms back and out of the way 

 of frosts ; but if the water becomes warm, 

 it will kill the vines; you see no cranberries 

 in meadows that are kept flowed till .Tune. 

 It is better, however, to draw the water off" 

 as soon as the first of May, and after a day 

 or two, flow again. In 1842, the cranber- 

 ries were very generally destroyed by the 



uncommon frosts of June, as late, we think, 

 as the 10th. Frosts in September, some- 

 times destroy the berries, and it would be 

 well to flow them, in cold nights, where 

 water is plenty. — Massachusetts Plough- 

 man. 



A Lo7ig Short-Cake. — Bread stufis form 

 an important item in the rapidly growing 

 commerce of this city. To illustrate the 

 extent of this branch of our trade, we have 

 made a small calculation, which will be 

 found to be entirely correct. 



During the last week in May, there was 

 sent from Buffalo, via the canal, sixty-one 

 thousand and ninety-seven barrels of flour, 

 and sixty-eight thousand six. hundred and 

 fift:y-six bushels of wheat. Allowing each 

 bushel of the latter to make forty-five 

 pounds of flour, and each barrel of the 

 former to contain one hundred and ninety- 

 six pounds, the total of pounds was fifteen 

 millions sixty-four thousand five hundred 

 and thirty-two ! During the same period, 

 there was sent from this city, along with 

 this immense quantity of flour, thirteen hun- 

 dred and forty-eight thousand two hundred 

 and thirteen pounds of butter and lard. 

 There was also sent over two and a quarter 

 millions of pounds of pearl-ash and other 

 ashes. Now, if the good people on the road 

 will furnish proper " wetting" and the place 

 to bake it in, we will put two pounds of good 

 flour in each foot of cake, and lard, butter 

 and salseratus enough to match, and treat 

 them a continuous short cake fourteen hun- 

 dred and twenty-six miles and a half long. 



One end of this cake might be placed in 

 the capital of Missouri, and the other would 

 not only reach to Boston, but it would "stick 

 out" over the Atlantic, some two hundred 

 miles. Of this, all the people of the United 

 States might eat their fill, besides giving 

 the fish of the great deep a " right smart 

 nibble." — Buffalo Commercial Advertiser. 



Good Cows.— Mr. E. D. Allen, of Le 

 Ray, Jeflxjrson county, N. Y., made, in the 

 months of May and June, from his dairy of 

 ten cows, eight tubs of butter, weighing 

 eight hundred and seventy-two pounds, (nett 

 weight) being a fraction short of forty-four 

 pounds per month, per cow, on an average. 

 The Jefferson dairies are not likely to lose 

 their high credit this year, if Mr. Allen's be 

 taken as a sample. — British American Cul- 

 tivator. 



A LEARNED doctor has given it as his 

 opinion, that tight lacing is a public benefit, 

 inasmuch as it kills off" the foolish girls, and 

 leaves the wise ones for women. 



