108 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



cranberries had never grown since the recollection of the 

 oldest man living. Some ten or twelve years ago this was 

 drained by ditching ; the peat taken from the ditches paid the 

 expense of it. A small flnme was built so as to flow the 

 meadow in the winter to the depth of about four feet ; this 

 cost but about five dollars. The third year after this work 

 was done, the vines, without planting, had grown so as to bear 

 twenty bushels of cranberries. This is but a small piece of 

 meadow, and from that time to the present the average yield 

 has been from tAventy to forty bushels per year. 



Gilbert Conant, Chairman. 



PLYMOUTH. 



From the Supervisor'' s Report. 

 Cranberry Meadows. — The cultivation of cranberries ap- 

 pears to be increasing, especially in the easterly portion of 

 the county. Although the product of both natural and cul- 

 tivated meadows may be, from year to year, provokingly un- 

 certain, it is believed that all well planned and carefully con- 

 ducted experiments in this branch of fruit-culture have proved 

 reasonably remunerative, and many of them exceedingly profit- 

 able. One important consideration in favor of the extended 

 cultivation of this crop, particularly in the vicinity of the sea- 

 shore, a consideration which should commend itself to the 

 attention of the owners of thoroughly-diked salt-marshes, is, 

 that milike other cultivated crops, it requires no manure, — 

 the only elements essential to its production being peat, sand, 

 air and water, which are almost everywhere to be found in 

 unlimited quantities. The bringing together of these elements 

 and their combination in due proportion, require the expendi- 

 ture of labor and the exercise of judgment, but the probabil- 

 ity of satisfactory returns is sutficient to warrant the outlay. 



Statement of William H. H, Bryant. 



I find among the papers of my late father, the following in- 

 complete statement respecting the lot of cranberry meadow 

 he entered for the premium payable the present year. 



My lot set to cranberry-vines contains eighty-seven and 

 three-quarters square rods. It was formerly a swamp-hole, 



