108 ON FRUITS. 



CRANBERRIES. 

 Your Committee, upon the upland culture of the Cranberry, 

 would respectfully report : 



That upon the above culture of this valuable fruit, we 

 would premise that, in our opinion, the Essex County as well 

 as other Societies in this State, have been heretofore rather 

 premature in their recommendation of this mode of culture. 

 As '' one swallow does not make a summer," neither will one 

 experiment justify us in commending this method. All know 

 that the cranberry is natural to the meadow, and although the 

 covering with water may be injurious at the time of flowering, 

 as well as at the time of setting its fruit, still, the flooding of 

 the vines in winter, or the covering with litter or evergreens 

 to protect the roots, as is practised in the upland culture, will 

 prevent the culture of this fruit to any extent. 



In order to be made remunerative, these beds or patches 

 must be made on the meadow, or upon a springy soil. Your 

 committee visited, this fall, Mr. Needham's fine cranberry patch 

 in Danvers, which is upon upland, so called. We found the 

 owner, with his man, in the process of hand weeding, thus 

 late in the season ; and to the inquiry as regards the labor in 

 weeding, how it would compare with the same area of straw- 

 berries, he replied that to keep this bed well weeded, required 

 five times the labor. The whole process, from the first prepa- 

 ration of the land, — the placing of meadow or swamp mud be- 

 tween the rows in mid-summer, the weeding throughout the 

 season, the necessity of covering them in winter with ever- 

 greens, — requires a vast amount of labor. In considering the 

 above testimony, which is corroborated by S. P. Fowler, of 

 the committee, we have arrived at the conclusion, that the up- 

 land culture could not be recommended to the farmers of this 

 county. Your committee also found, that in Mr. Needham's 

 mode of culture, the fruit cannot be gathered by the cranberry 

 rakes without great injury to the vines, but that they must be 

 hand picked. 



The same objections we should not make to their cultiva- 

 tion on their natural habitats, as we should to the corn field, but 



