CRANBERRY 
in humus, boggy and mixed with sand. 
The water should be within a few inches 
of the surface, and during the growing 
season, the whole area should be flooded 
as in the growing of rice in the South. 
The cranberry is not, however, a Southern 
plant but grows either in the northern lat- 
itudes or the high altitudes which make 
the climate equivalent to a northern lati- 
tude. On account of the necessity of 
maintaining a water level, land should be 
chosen that has a substratum of hard 
pan, impervious clay, or something that 
holds the water, so that while the plants 
are growing the water may be held from 
six to ten inches below the surface, and 
when they are fruiting the water should 
be held at from one to two feet deep 
below the surface. 
On this account, the land should be 
level, or it cannot be uniformly covered to 
a sufficient depth. In order to do this, it 
is better to make a small embankment 
around the tract to be irrigated. These 
embankments need not be more than 
about three feet in height, and if the land 
is sufficiently leveled, they will hold the 
water to any depth needed in the growing 
of the fruits. 
Grading 
The work of grading the land should 
be done with a good deal of care, destroy- 
ing all roots of plants, shrubs, and what- 
ever may obstruct the growth of the 
fruit. The land should be then carefully 
smoothed down to a level and sanded. 
The sanding is a process that may require 
much labor, depending on the distance 
sand must be hauled. The sand should 
be seattered over the land to a depth of 
about four inches. 
Propagation 
The propagation of the cranberry for 
commercial purposes is by means of cut- 
tings, but for the production of new va- 
rieties seeds are planted as in most other 
kinds of fruit. The cuttings are planted 
as early in the spring as possible and 
the land kept sufficiently flooded to pro- 
tect the plants from frost. 
Methods of cranberry culture differ in 
different localities. LL. C. Corbett, Horti- 
§35 
culturist for the Department of Agricul- 
ture, conducted an investigation some 
years ago into this subject and the results 
are in part embodied in what follows. 
Cuttings 
* New cranberry meadows are almost 
always established by planting cuttings. 
The sanded surface of the area to be 
planted serves as the propagating bed for 
the cuttings as well as the home for the 
established plants. The cuttings consist 
usually of portions of shoots of the vari- 
ety to be grown, 10 to 15 inches long. The 
common practice is to secure the cuttings 
from vigorous plants by mowing a portion 
of the meadow with a mowing scythe. The 
portions of the vines thus secured are 
then transported to the area to be planted 
and separated into wisps containing from 
8 to 15 separate stems. The wisps are 
placed at the intersection of marks made 
to indicate the interval between the plants, 
usually 18 by 18 or 9 by 18 inches. The 
cuttings are then forced into the sand 
with a broad, thin, wedge-shaped dibble. 
The blade of the dibble is placed midway 
of the wisp of cuttings, so that the pres- 
sure exerted upon the cuttings doubles 
them upon themselves and at the same 
time presses them firmly in the soil. 
While the above statement explains the 
usual method of propagating the cran- 
berry, new meadows have been established 
by running the cuttings through an or- 
dinary hay or straw cutter, thus reducing 
them to fragments about one inch long. 
By sowing these fragments in rows or 
broadcasting them upon the surface, a 
stand of plants may be secured. Cuttings 
of the cranberry intended for shipment 
should be loosely packed in well venti- 
lated barrels, baskets, or crates. More in- 
jury results from the heating of the plants 
in closely packed, unventilated recep- 
tacles than from drying in well ventilated 
ones. 
Harvesting 
In early days of cranberry culture har- 
vesting was necessarily done by hand. As 
the industry expanded, the increased de- 
mand for pickers rendered it necessary 
* Parmers’ Bulletin No. 176 
