364 Bush-Fruits 



annual huckleberry crop of Wisconsin has been estimated 

 at 20,000 bushels, valued at between $60,000 and $80,000. 



A few instances are on record of success in a commercial 

 way under cultivation or semi-cultivation. These have 

 usually consisted in treating wild huckleberry land in such 

 a way as to increase the returns from plants already grow- 

 ing upon it. This may often be done to advantage. In 

 swamps, competing growth may be cut away if the stand 

 of plants will warrant. On wild land where low huckle- 

 berries are abundant, frequently burning over the area 

 will improve the returns. This practice, by irresponsible 

 parties, has often caused serious fires in the mountain 

 regions of the Atlantic states. Some plan of encouraging 

 and protecting the wild growth is about the only method 

 which promises success with the low-growing kinds. 



The high huckleberry or swamp blueberry has often 

 been tried under garden culture, with varying degrees 

 of success. Transplanting wild plants is not a difficult 

 operation. The writer's experience, showed no greater 

 proportion of loss than is likely to occur in moving other 

 wild plants. Success depends not so much on transplant- 

 ing as in the behavior of the plants afterward. In some 

 cases they have thriven and borne well; in others they 

 have gradually dwindled away and disappeared. 



Among the attempts made to bring this plant under 

 domestication, should be mentioned the work of A. S. 

 Fuller, Jackson Dawson, of the Arnold Arboretum, Benja- 

 min G. Smith, formerly Secretary of the American Porno- 

 logical Society, and others. Dawson probably achieved 

 greater success in propagating the blueberry than any other 

 man up to recent times. 



