240 



BMALL FKUIT CIJLTUKIST. 



white to deep red, one half to one inch in diameter ; varia 

 ble in shape, from globular, ovoid, ovate-oblong, bell- 

 shape, etc. 



V. erythrocarpoili — Bush Cranberry. — Leaves decidu 

 ous, oblong-ovate, acuminate, bristly serrate ; stems erect, 

 flexible; two to four feet high; berry small, red, dry and 

 insipid. High mountains of Virginia and North Carolina. 



HISTORY. 



The Cranberry is almost exclusively a northern plant, 

 and was probably not known to the Romans until their 

 conquests in the North. In Northern Europe it has been 

 highly appreciated for centuries, and immense quantities 

 are annually brought into the English markets from Kussia 

 and Sweden, in addition to those produced in Britain, 

 The American Cranberry, K macrocarpon^ was intro- 

 duced into England in 1760, and, although acknowledged 

 to be superior to the common European species, still we 

 have no accounts of its being cultivated there to any con- 

 siderable extent. 



The first settlers in America found the Cranberry in 

 such abundance that there was no necessity for cultivat- 

 ing it, until the population became so numerous that the 

 natural supply would not equal the demand. This point 

 was reached about thirty years ago, at which time nu- 

 merous experiments in its cultivation commenced at Cape 

 Cod, and in a few other places. 



Previous to this time, however, an occasional plot had 

 been cultivated. Kenrick, in the New American Orchard- 

 ist, 1832, says: Capt. Henry Hall, of Barnstable, Mass., 

 has cultivated the Cranberry for twenty years. In the 

 New England Farmer, Vol. IX, No. 18, is an account of 

 a Mr. F. A. Hayden, of Lincoln, Mass., who, in 1830, sold 

 from his farm 400 bushels of Cranberries for six hundred 

 dollars. From these and a few other recorded instances 



