118 HISTORY OF FHL'ITS. 



dry bottles, and corking them up close, 1 trust this com- 

 munication will be acceptable. 



"In April 1814,1 procured four plants of the American 

 cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon), the kind cultivated 

 by the late Sir Joseph Banks at Spring Grove, whose 

 method I followed, placing them in a small bed over 

 part of a pond which was fenced off. These plants 

 flourished, and produced me some very fine fruit, which 

 I found so useful that I was induced to attempt to obtain, 

 if possible, a larger supply; but not having another 

 piece of water, which I could conveniently devote to this 

 purpose, I resolved to try to grow them in a dry bed. 



"In April 1818, I filled half-a-dozen shallow boxes, 

 each about eighteen inches square and four inches deep, 

 with peat earth, and planted in them, at one inch apart, 

 cuttings of the cranberry, about an inch and a-half in 

 length, placing them in my melon bed, where they were 

 frequently watered : the cuttings rooted freely and threw 

 out strong shoots, and in the June following they were fit 

 to plant out. Having collected from a dry hill, where 

 wild heath flourished in abundance, a sufficient quantity 

 of peat earth, such as Gushing in his Exotic Gardener 

 (second edition, page 156,) describes under that name, 

 I formed a bed one hundred and fifty feet long by four 

 feet wide. In order to give the plants room to extend 

 their roots freely, I caused eighteen inches in width of 

 the centre part of this bed to be excavated .throughout 

 its whole length to the depth of two feet ; and having first 

 covered about two inches of the bottom of the trench 

 with small wood, I filled it up with the peat earth, well 

 trod in ; on the sides of the bed, to the extent of its 

 width, 1 put only six inches depth of this mould. About 

 the end of June 1818, I placed one row of plants in the 

 centre of this bed, about two feet apart from each other 



