258 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



trade and of satisfactory processes for preserving, the perfection 

 of selling arrangements, the production of heavier average 

 annual crops to the acre, by the stoppage of losses from insects 

 and disease, and possibly also by the growing of more prolific 

 varieties, which would lower the per barrel cost of production, 

 will make it possible to grow cranberries at a reasonable profit 

 and at the same time provide for a normal increase in acreage 

 for many years to come. Better and more economical methods 

 of harvesting, packing and shipping the fruit will also undoubt- 

 edly be developed and assist greatly in lessening the cost of 

 production. The average expense of picking the berries and 

 resanding bogs is at present altogether too high, and it is not 

 unreasonable to expect that both these costs will sometime be 

 much reduced by the use of machinery. It is to be hoped, also, 

 that in time the sales companies of New England, New Jersey 

 and Wisconsin, which at present, together as the American 

 Cranberry Exchange, control the sale of over 60 per cent, of 

 the cranberry crop of the country, will so develop their arrange- 

 ments as to have large central packing plants where the process 

 of preparing the berries for market may be so simplified and 

 perfected that the expense connected with it will be considerably 

 reduced. 



To discuss fully all the matters of interest in connection with 

 the cranberry industry would require more time and space than 

 is allowed the writer in the preparation of this paper. There 

 will be given here, therefore, only a brief discussion of what 

 appear to be the more important essentials for the growing of 

 cranberries, their preparation for market, and their preparation 

 for the table, together with an itemized estimate of the present 

 cost of preparing a bog. 



The Essentials of an Ideal Cranberry Bog. 

 Land. 

 It seems to be the general experience that cranberries in cul- 

 tivation, as in the wild state, do best on low, moist, swamp land 

 consisting of muck or peat. The depth of this peat or muck 

 soil need not, however, be very great, a few inches of peat or a 

 single layer of turf underlaid by sand or clay very frequently 

 giving most satisfactory results. It does not appear, however, 



