By Sir Joseph Banks, Bart. 77 



whole of the island to it, which in a few years it entirely co- 

 vered by its own runners, without any fresh plants being put 

 in, and this bed, with the addition of some hanging boxes 

 receding from the centre to the sides, produced in the year 

 1806, twenty -three bottles of very fine Cranberries. 



In the year 1805, a bed was made on the side of the pond 

 twenty feet long and five feet and a half broad, by a few stakes 

 driven into the bottom parallel to the side, and lined with old 

 boards ; the bottom of this was filled up with stones and rub- 

 bish, and on these a bed of black mould, three inches above 

 'and seven inches below the usual surface of the water, was 

 laid : this was planted with Cranberry plants, many of them 

 having been rooted in a hot bed, in which they throve most 

 vigorously. In this autumn, 1807, the bed produced a crop 

 which, added to that of the island, afforded a supply for the 

 family, of five dozen bottles of Cranberries, besides a small 

 basket reserved for present use. The total contents of the 

 two Cranberry beds, is three hundred and twenty six square 

 feet ; the quantity of land employed for raising Strawberries 

 at Spring Grove, is, after the*di visions between the beds have 

 been deducted, five thousand, six hundred and forty five 

 square feet ; the beds necessary to give a sufficient supply of 

 Cranberries for the family, did not therefore occupy quite 

 one-eighth of the space allotted to Strawberries. 



The Society will, I hope, forgive this detail of the origin 

 and progress of this kind of cultivation : successful as it has 

 been, it must still he considered in its infancy, and not suffi- 

 ciently established to afford general rules for the regulation 

 of a gardener's proceedings ; it originated entirely in a fortu- 

 nate accident, the history of which, will, it is hoped, give an 



