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CRANBERRY CULTURE. 



For the Committee on Experiments in the Cultivation of 

 Cranberries, I respectfully report that no cranberry grounds 

 have been oflfered for their inspection. This failure is not ow- 

 ing to any lack of attention to such culture, but rather to the 

 late spring frosts, which damaged alike the crops and the cul- 

 tivator's hopes for premiums. 



One of your committee — John D. Hildreth of Manchester, 

 who has taken the first premiums the last two years — has, at 

 my request, kindly furnished me with some notes in regard to 

 the failure of his crop this season. The facts which he pre- 

 sents must be interesting to cranberry growers, and I take 

 pleasure in presenting them in this report, in place of any 

 extended remarks of mine. 



Mr. Hildreth says : — " I let the water off the 10th of May. 

 The vines soon began to grow finely — I never saw them look 

 better. At night on the twenty-fourth I found the mercury 

 was down within a few degrees of freezing. I commenced 

 lighting my fires, about nine oclock, all around the meadow, 

 and kept them burning through the night. The smoke went 

 up in straight columns about forty feet, and there rested like a 

 cloud. Perhaps if there had been less blaze, the smoke might 

 have come down lower. The frost was as severe close beside 

 the fire as anywhere. There was not one fruit bud (which 

 had then started) left — the ruin was complete. I afterwards 

 put down the gate, and kept the vines nearly covered until the 

 thirteenth of June. I now think the best way is to draw off 

 part of the water before the middle of May — leaving only just 

 enough to cover the vines — until the tenth of June. The wa- 

 ter will get too warm in the day to freeze at night if there is 

 frost, and I find it will not injure the vines." 



It appears from the facts here stated that burning fires afford 



no protection to vines, except the state of the atmosphere be 



such that the smoke will settle in a cloud very low. Smoke 



is, perhaps, less likely to settle thus in the clearest and coldest 



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