CHAPTER XXII 



THE CRANBERRY AND ITS VARIETIES 



Cultivated cranberries belong to two species 

 of Vaccinium. Both species are slender, trail- 

 ing, evergreen bog-plants, bearing variously 

 shaped light or dark-red berries in great pro- 

 fusion. The name comes from the fancied re- 

 semblance of the bud just before opening, with 

 its slender curving pedicel, to the head and 

 neck of a crane, whence craneberry, now short- 

 ened to cranberry. The small cranberry, V. 

 Oxycoccus, is little cultivated, while the large 

 cranberry, V. macrocarpon, is grown on thou- 

 sands of acres in the United States and Can- 

 ada, its culture furnishing one of the most 

 specialized and interesting of all pomological 

 crops. 



1. Vaccinium macrocarpon, Ait. Large Cranberry. 

 American Cranberry. Stems slender and creeping, but 

 comparatively stout, 1-4 feet long, the flowering 

 branches ascending. Leaves oblong-elliptic, %-% inch 

 in length, %-% inch broad, blunt or rounded at the 

 tip, flat or inclined to be revolute at the margin, ever- 

 green, leathery, dark green and glossy above, whitened 

 beneath, glabrous. Flowers pale rose-colored, nodding, 

 1-10, borne on long filiform pedicels, borne in early 

 summer ; corolla 4-parted ; filaments scarcely % the 

 length of the anther. Fruit maturing in the autumn ; 

 %-l inch in diameter; oblong, round, ovate or obovoid 

 in shape ; light red to dark red ; and more or less 

 astringent. 



The large cranberry is an inhabitant of open 

 bogs, swamps, and damp heaths from New- 

 foundland to Wisconsin and southward to 

 West Virginia and Arkansas, being most com- 

 monly found in the northeastern quarter of its 

 range. In cultivation, its range is extended to 

 the Pacific Coast, where Oregon and Wash- 

 ington have a considerable number of culti- 

 vated bogs. 



The early settlers in the New England and 

 North Atlantic states were not slow in dis- 

 covering that cranberries made an excellent 

 sauce to accompany the fare of game upon 

 which they chiefly subsisted, but cranberry- 

 culture did not begin until the nineteenth 

 century was well started, 1810 being the date 

 given for the establishment of the first ar- 

 tificial bog. The abundance of the wild crop 

 obviated the necessity of domesticating the 

 cranberry. Also, as there were no bog-plants 

 under cultivation for fruit, methods of treat- 

 ment had to be invented: the fruit-growing 

 lore of centuries and even the tools for culti- 

 vation were useless in beginning the cultiva- 

 tion of the cranberry. The Cape Cod 

 peninsula was the home of the pioneers in 

 cranberry-culture, and still holds first rank 

 among the several cranberry districts of the 



continent. At first there were no named va- 

 rieties of this fruit, but cranberries vary greatly 

 in size, color, and shape, so that types soon 

 came into existence, the earliest being the Bell, 

 the Bugle, and the Cherry. Later, or to be 

 specific, about 1890, named varieties began to 

 appear, since which time a score or more, most 

 of which are still under cultivation, have been 

 introduced. 



The cranberry industry is now well estab- 

 lished in several centers in North America, 

 chief of which are, in order of importance, the 

 Cape Cod region of Massachusetts, New Jer- 

 sey, Wisconsin, Nova Scotia, western Oregon, 

 and western Washington. The requirements 

 for cranberry-culture seem to be: (1) Level 

 land in a sandy region; (2) water to flood the 

 bog; (3) drainage so that the water-table is 

 a foot below the surface in the growing season; 

 (4) comparative freedom from frosts. The 

 ideal soil is one of peat several inches in 

 depth, under which is sand, in its turn super- 

 imposed on a clay hardpan, which must be 

 almost or quite impervious to water. The 

 surface of the bog, in some regions, is mulched 

 with three to five inches of sand. Neither soil 

 nor water for flooding must be alkaline, and 

 the soil must be acid. Bogs are usually located 

 in situations where cranberries or other heath- 

 plants thrive in the wild. The subjugation of 

 wild bog-lands, the building of dams, canals, 

 leveling the land, and sanding, make a 

 cranberry-bog an expensive plantation to lay 

 out and maintain. 



Since its inception a century ago, the cran- 

 berry industry has steadily grown, the annual 

 yield at the present time for the United 

 States being estimated at 40,000,000 quarts. 

 The crop is largely handled by cooperative 

 associations of growers organized for improve- 

 ing methods of cultivation, obtaining new 

 varieties, and distributing the product to con- 

 sumers. The several cranberry associations, 

 in their turn, are organized into the American 

 Cranberry Exchange, which markets the whole 

 output of the associations. This statement of 

 the method of handling the crop is necessary 

 to lead up to an account of a peculiarity in 

 the method of classifying cranberries. 



The American Cranberry Exchange in 1919 

 handled varieties of cranberries, which were 

 sold under eighty brands, the brands being 

 established in accordance with variety, color, 

 and size. Thus, Early Black, a leading variety, 

 is sold under six brands in New England and 



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