1861 



NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. 



233 



Its more general use would tend to promote the 

 health and good-nature of the family. In hotels, 

 where the table is well supplied, it is now con- 

 sidered as indispensable, and at sea, is found to 

 give a cheerful vigor to both body and mind, 

 •while it fortifies the system against that fell 

 scourge of seamen, the scurvy. 



Its value as a condiment, and as a nutritive ar- 

 ticle of food, is generally acknowledged ; it is 

 natural to our soil and climate; its culture is 

 pretty well understood, and when skilfully con- 

 ducted, the results are quite certain ; it is easily 

 harvested, stored and preserved ; it is supposed 

 to possess medicinal qualities of the highest or- 

 der in some of the most painful maladies with 

 which man is afflicted ; these qualities cannot 

 fail to give this fruit a pecuniary importance 

 worthy of the consideration of every farmer who 

 has lands and market facilities adapted to its 

 cultivation. 



There are three kinds, at least, of this fruit 

 found in New England meadows, each of which 

 has been brought under cultivation. They are, 



1. The Bell Craxberuy, 



2. The Bugle Cranberry, and 



3. The Cherry Cranberry. 



They derive their names from their resem- 

 blance to a bell, to a bead, called a bugle bead, 

 and to the cherry, which it resembles in form, 

 size, and color. All these varieties may be found 

 in this vicinity. The bugle, — the variety to 

 which we have already alluded, where twelve ber- 

 ries measured a full foot in length, — is found 

 growing in some of the low places in this vicinity, 

 in beautiful perfection. 



We are not able to say which of the three va- 

 rieties is the BEST, if there is really any differ- 

 ence in their quality. They are all good. 



The Soils best adapted to the Cranberry are 

 our low grounds, what we usually call muck mea- 

 dows, or swamps. It seems to need a soil that is 

 constantly moist, but not holding standing water, 

 during the growing season of the plant, and it is 

 thought by some that it requires nothing for its 

 perfect development but air and water, and a 

 foothold in the soil. Where we have found the 

 cranberry in its greatest perfection, we have ob- 

 served a considerable portion of sand, either un- 

 derlying the muck, or intimately mingled with 

 the black humus, or soil. Indeed, sand seems to 

 be necessary to a luxuriant growth of plant and 

 fruit. What the special agency of the sand is, 

 we do not know ; whether it affords strength to 

 the plant by its silicic acid, imparts potash, or 

 acts underneath as a strainer, and thus keeps 

 the plant moist, but not submerged, we are not 

 able to say. Were it not that the humus, or 

 black, decomposed vegetable and sometimes ani- 

 mal matter, is such an absorber of heat, we 



should be inclined to think the sand might act 

 by storing up the solar heat during the middle of 

 the day and imparting it back to the plants and 

 the surrounding atmosphere during the night, 

 and thus greatly equalizing the temperature 

 through the growing season of the plant. This 

 equalization would be important, because greater 

 changes take place in these low grounds than on 

 the high lands. Even in midsummer, in passing 

 from a hill through a low piece of ground of 

 some extent, we sensibly feel a change of several 

 degrees, so that an overcoat would be agreeable 

 when it would have been oppressive on the high 

 land. 



In an analysis of the cranberry by Prof. Hors- 

 ford, of Cambridge, he found it mainly composed 

 of water. In its ashes he found almost 45 parts 

 were potash and soda. It seems evident, there- 

 fore, that although the amount of potash in the 

 fruit may be small, it must be considerable where 

 the aggregate of a productive acre of berries is 

 so large. This may be one reason why the cran- 

 berry flourishes so well on the sea-shore, where 

 alkalies abound. We know, also, that the pota- 

 to requires a good deal of potash, and that it does 

 best on new lands that have not been exhausted 

 of that mineral by cultivated crops, and in 

 meadows, composed chiefly of vegetable matter. 

 The ample supply of potash to the plant seems to 

 be another reason why muck lands are best suit- 

 ed to the cranberry. 



In another article we will speak of the Prepara- 

 tion of Soils for the Cultivation of the Cranberry. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 POMO D'OKO LESTBRIANO, 



OR THa \EW PERFECTED TOMATO. 



Having noticed in the Farmer of the 2d a val- 

 uable communication from the pen of Mr. C. E. 

 Lester, upon the cultivation of the tomato, refer- 

 ring to his new valuable variety, and having ex- 

 perimented with it the past summer, I herewith 

 give you my experience in the cultivation of this 

 tomato, compared with other kinds. 



I obtained, and planted the seeds of Lester's 

 Perfected Tomato in pots, the 20th of March, and 

 placed them in the green-house, transplanting six 

 plants into the open ground the 20th of June, at 

 the same time placing six plants of the large 

 early Red Premium Tomato, at the other extreme 

 end of my garden. I manured, and served them 

 alike through the summer. The Premium Toma- 

 toes were much larger than the Perfected, when 

 set out, but the latter soon outgrew the former, 

 and ripened their fruit 16 days earlier.^ The qual- 

 ity of the fruit was superior, as described by Mr. 

 Lester. Thin skin, very solid, large, and verr 

 prolific in bearing. I sent a dish of the tomatoes 

 to the Essex County Agricultural Society, and 

 obtained a premium for them ; the committee 

 pronounced them superior to any variety on ex- 

 hibition. John S. Ives. 



Salem, March, 1861. 



