22 CBANBERET CULTURE. 



men had heard something of the success of cranherry 

 culture in New England, but they knew little or nothing 

 . of the methods of cultivation by which this success was 

 achieved. Having nothing to guide them in their early 

 attempts at cranberry culture, it is not surprising that 

 the New Jersey growers found it unprofitable. Indeed, 

 it is estimated that until toward^ the year 1860, nine- 

 tenths of those who undertook it failed. 

 . John Webb, of Ocean County, was perhaps one of the 

 earliest successful experimenters in this State. He com- 

 menced by removing some sods of vines from a neighbor- 

 ing swamp, and placing them in a damp spot, that proved 

 to be adapted to their growth ; in this they flourished, 

 and, in course of time, the ground was covered with 

 vines yielding paying crops. 



Barclay White, one of the first cultivators in Burling- 

 ton County, writing, in 1855, to the Secretary of the Mas- 

 sachusetts Board of Agriculture, said : " In the spring of 

 1851, I commenced operations by plowing up (the turf 

 was turned under), and planting about three-fourths of 

 an acre on a black, peaty soil, of twelve or fifteen inches 

 in depth, with a white sand and gravel subsoil. On either 

 side, a few hundred yards distant, on ground in which a 

 horse would mire, tlie wild vines were growing luxuri- 

 antly. I struck out the rows four feet apart each way, 

 and planted a sod of vines, some four inches square, at 

 each intersection. They were cultivated some that season. 

 That fall we picked three pecks of fruit, large and fine ; 

 aibout an equal quantity had been destroyed by a worm, 

 similar in appearance to the apple-worm. In 1852, I 

 planted about one and a quarter acres in a similar manner, 

 excepting that the hills were placed four feet by two feet 

 apart. The product that fall was about six bushels of 

 large fruit, picked about the last of August, but they did 

 not keep welL The vines had become so matted as to ad- 



