Vol. XXIX, No. 6 



WASHINGTON 



June, 1916 



THE WILD BLUEBERRY TAMED 



The New Industry of the Pine Barrens of New Jersey 



By Frederick V. Coville 



Botanist of the; U. S. Department of Agriculture 



IN AN article published last year de- 

 scribing the successful outcome of 

 experiments in the growing of trail- 

 ing arbutus from the seed, the incidental 

 statement was made that "in the first trial 

 blueberry plantation, in the pine barrens 

 of New Jersey, blueberries are now pro- 

 duced of the size and color of Concord 

 grapes."* This allusion aroused so much 

 interest among the readers of the Na- 

 tional Geographic Magazine that the 

 writer has been asked to expand his state- 

 ment into a description, with illustrations, 

 of the progress that has been made in the 

 new industry of blueberry culture. 



Five years ago, in this Magazine, a de- 

 scription was given by the writer of cer- 

 tain physiological peculiarities of the 

 blueberry plant in which it differs, funda- 

 mentally from the ordinary plants of 

 agriculture. f When given the kind of 

 care, protection, and nourishment usually 

 bestowed on cultivated crops, the blue- . 

 berry sickens and dies (see picture, page 



536). 



In a search for the cause of this pe- 

 culiar behavior it was found that the 

 healthy blueberry plant has on its roots a 



*The Cultivation of the Mayflower. Na- 

 tional Geographic Magazine, May, 1915. 



t Taming the Wild Blueberry. National 

 Geographic Magazine, February, 191 1. - 



minute fungus, invisible without the aid 

 of a compound microscope, which, unlike 

 most fungi, appears to be beneficial, not 

 injurious, its particular beneficent action 

 being to furnish nitrogenous food to the 

 blueberry bush. So intimate, indeed, is 

 the relation between the two that the 

 blueberry appears unable to nourish itself 

 properly without the assistance of the 

 fungus. 



The problem of blueberry culture, 

 therefore, became primarily the problem 

 of growing the blueberry fungus, and the 

 solution of this second problem lay in the 

 character of the soil. The blueberry fun- 

 gus requires an acid soil, and it thrives 

 best in one composed of leaf peat and 

 sand. The pine barrens of New Jersey 

 afford just that kind of soil, with every 

 .variation in moisture from permanent 

 bog to areas of pronounced aridity. 



The failure of earlier experimenters, 

 and there have been several in the last 50 

 years, to establish an industry of blue- 

 berry culture was due primarily to their 

 failure to recognize that an acid soil is 

 the first essential of successful blueberry 

 production. 



Before showing what has been done in 

 the way of commercial blueberrv culture 

 in the pine barrens of New Jersey, it may 

 be well to contrast an illustration of the 



