180 



covering the surface with sand before setting cuttings or 

 plants. 



GATHERING THE FRUIT. 



Cranberries should be well ripened before being gathered. If 

 picked before they are fully grown^ they are bitter. The same 

 fruit that is inferior, bitter, and nearly worthless when taken 

 off too green, would be excellent if fully ripened on the vines.* 

 Unripe berries, if spread in thin layers on shelves, or on the 

 floor of a room, become well colored by exposure to light ; but 

 the ripe appearance does not make the quality good. 



Severe frost injures unripe cranberries. This causes some to 

 gather them too early. Perhaps the fruit might be protected, 

 if necessary, a few frosty nights in September, in the same 

 way that the blossoms are, sometimes, in spring. Three or 

 four small piles of turf, or brushwood and peat, placed around 

 the border of the meadow, are set on fire in the evening when 

 there is danger of frost. These fires are left to smoulder all 

 night. The smoke settling over the surface of the meadow, is 

 sufficient protection in quite cold nights. Three or four fires, 

 if properly an-anged, will often protect two acres of vines or 

 more. 



The cranberry-rake is much used in gathering the fruit on 

 wild meadows. On cultivated grounds, hand-picking is much 

 the best. The fruit so picked is all clean and nice, and un- 

 mixed with bruised or worthless berries. The rake injures 

 thickly grown vines exceedingly. It is necessary, after using 

 the rake, to go over the ground again and pick by hand con- 

 siderable fruit that it leaves among the vines. To pick wholly 

 by hand, costs about fifty cents per bushel, usually, but some- 

 times a little less. The nicer the fruit is grown, the more im- 

 portant it is to pick by hand. 



KEEPING. 



Cranberries, if well rijyeiied and jvoperhj gathered and assorted, 

 can be kept as easily as winter apples, and for a much longer 

 time. Some persons put them in barrels, soon after being 



