286 POPULAR FRUIT GROWING. 



of the surface of the bed is injurious. This sand offers a goou 

 place for the plants to root, is easily cultivated, and experience 

 shows that it is conducive to fruitfulness. Yet there are many 

 very fruitful peat beds that have never been sanded. If a peat 

 bed is to be used without sand, the surface should be exposed 

 to frost one year before planting or it will be likely to bake 

 hard, but after one season's frost it becomes loose and fine. 



Drainage and flowage. The method of securing these con- 

 ditions will depend much on the situation of the land. The 

 drainage is generally best accomplished by digging an open 



Fig. 130. Cranberry bog newly planted, showing ditch and dike; also 

 portion of bed not yet covered with sand. 



ditch four or more feet wide through the center of the land. 

 A smaller ditch should completely enclose the land, which 

 should be divided into beds by lateral ditches about five rods 

 apart. Where springs are met with they must be connected 

 with a ditch. 



Importance of water. The flowage may sometimes be con- 

 trolled from a pond above the bog, or by a brook or creek run- 

 ning through it. Every reasonable effort should be made to 

 secure and control water for flowage for the following reasons: 

 (1) Without a good water supply bogs often get very dry in 

 periods of protracted drouth, to the great injury of the plants, 

 and occasionally peat or moss bogs get on fire and burn up, 

 destroying all the work done. A bog once on fire can seldom 

 be saved except by flooding. (2) The water kept over the 



