THE CRANBERRY 171 



at all times. After all growth has been removed from 

 the surface and the land roughly graded perfectly level, 

 it should be made as fine and mellow as possible, after 

 which a covering of clean, sharp sand from three to 

 six inches deep is spread evenly over it. The land is 

 then ready for the plants. 



Setting the Plants The plants, or rather cuttings, 

 are the end runners of established bogs, twelve to fifteen 

 inches long, cut from the edges of the rows or paths, 

 or often taken from some more solid part of the bed. 

 If possible these cuttings should be taken from some 

 spot where the plants are producing large crops of 

 large, finely colored berries. The bog is marked off in 

 from nine to eighteen-inch squares, and the cuttings, 

 three or four in a bunch, are forced through the sand 

 into the fine soil below with a blunt wooden dibble or 

 paddle, and the sand pressed firmly about them. In 

 planting the cuttings, care should be taken not to break 

 off the lower end of them in forcing through the sand. 

 After planting no weeds should be allowed to grow, all 

 that appear being pulled out by hand. It is not the 

 general practice of growers to use the hand hoe unless 

 obliged to do so, and a good bog is so soft that it would 

 not hold up a horse. Sometimes when the land is espe- 

 cially poor, a light dressing of any good commercial 

 fruit fertilizer just before the sand is put on or after 

 the plantation has been in bearing several years, will 

 produce marvelous results. Well prepared bogs will 

 yield good crops the third year, and after this nearly a 

 full crop every year, unless insects or frosts destroy 

 them. The yield of a good bog under favorable condi- 

 tions has often been between one hundred and two hun- 

 dred bushels per acre. The average of all bogs in the 

 Cape Cod section in a single season has been one hundred 

 and seventeen bushels; that of the country between 

 eighty and ninety bushels. 



