AP3RL 8 
234 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
into the reservoir whenever desirable, but I 
will not attempt to give instructions in this, 
as each can make one according to the con¬ 
ditions of his surroundings. Next conies 
the reservoir dam. Construct this on the 
same principle as the lower dam: after the 
dam and gates are completed, extend the main 
drainage ditch into the creek. The small 
side ditches have now to be made: cut them 
18 inches or two feet wide ; take out only 
the sod, and transfer the latter to the line 
where the small dams have to be made. 
Bill-hook and Knife—Fig. 109. 
Jn making these, put what sod you have at 
the upper side, or where the pressure and wash 
of the water come, and complete the balance 
of the two-feet high and three feet wide parti¬ 
tions with sand. If you value the land more 
than a little extra expense, drive stakes down 
and nail boards to them to form the back of 
the dam, setting them hack far enough to al¬ 
low proper slope to the sand when put on two 
feet high. The last thing on the list is making 
the sluices to connect all of the fields. Take 
four planks six feet long, two ten inches wide, 
and two one foot wide. Spike them together 
in the shape shown at Fig, 113, making the 
top plank two inches shorter than the bottom 
for the purpose of putting a slide in front. 
Put this open ended box firmly down in the 
ditch, letting the upper end come near the 
dam. Pack sand firmly around it and build 
up to the other level. 
SETTING THE VINES. 
In setting out vines, select those which bear 
the nicest berries; pull them partly with the 
sod hook and partly by hand to make clean 
work. If you have plenty of vines and time, 
don’t be particular about the distances apart 
at which they are set. They can’t very well be 
too thick on the ground. You can drop a 
small handful and with one firm step with the 
heel of your boot, send them home, or cut 
them up in pieces about six inches in length, 
Cross Section of Ditch—Fig. 110. 
and with a tool like that shown at Fig. 114 
force whatever the slot in the iron foot, a, 
will hold into the muck as far as the washer 
b. You can stretch a line and set them by it, 
which makes surer work. Vines set in this 
way, if put thickly over the ground, can bear 
a paying crop in four years. 
STOREHOUSE AND TRAMWAY. 
A cranberry farm requires a good many 
buildings—although it is not necessary to con¬ 
struct them of brown stone or marble. A 
cranberry storing-house is most convenient if 
it has two stories. Store the berries in the 
upper one, &ud when you wish to clean them, 
put them in a hopper over the fanning-mill and 
thus bring them down to the first floor, where 
they may be looked over and barreled for 
market. Shanties for the accommodation of 
pickers or rakers must be made. Protect 
these especially with a good roof. Pickers 
generally board themselves, and are furnished 
with stoves and firewood, but rakers are gen 
orally boarded, Almost indispensable are a car 
and track laid down temporarily on the 
marsh or the high laud, to convey sand for 
constructing the dams, or berries in picking 
time. A car that will hold a square yard of 
sand is large enough for two men to handle. 
It must be constructed to dump at the end. If 
there is but one car to open up with, it must 
be rigged over when it is used for hauling 
berries. These are now mostly put into bushel 
boxes, and about fifty boxes will make a load. 
The track must be made in sections so that it 
can be shifted with as little trouble as possible. 
FLOODING. 
About the first of November the flood should 
be let on. Bo cautious at fiist; let it rise but 
slowly; watch the dam closely; have boards 
scattered along here and there, and also put a 
pile of sand at. short intervals on the dam, to¬ 
gether with a good quantity of hay. Should a 
break in the dam occur, drive a couple of 
stakes on each side of the break; put down a 
board behind the dam; press hay down in front 
of it, thus stopping the break temporarily; 
then fill up with sand. If the work is finished 
before November 1, one can amuse himself in 
the interval by pulling brush, or setting out 
vines, for no doubt he will find plenty of room 
for the latter. 
Suppose now we have passed on to Spring 
when the flood must be let off. Don’t do this, 
however, until all danger of frost is passed. 
If the vines have been kept covered with wa¬ 
ter during the Winter, and other things are 
favorable, the grower may now look for a 
crop of berries ; but he must never weary of 
watchfulness, Throughout the whole Sum¬ 
mer season he must not neglect the water 
works. Keep the marsh moist, but don’t flood 
it. Select medium-high points in the marsh 
for your observations. 
INSECT FOES. 
On these high places there frequently are 
plenty of vines, but uo berries and many of 
the viues are withered. These are the places 
frequented by the “ fire worm.” The mischief 
done by these worms consists in sucking the 
sap out of the vines, leaving them to die. Gen¬ 
erally they will spring up from the surface 
again, but I have seen vines killed outright by 
them; and in any r case the crop for the coming 
season is ruined. They generally do most mis¬ 
chief duringthetime of bloom. 1 f tliey threaten 
serious work, flood the vines for twenty-four 
which in a thinly settled country is frequent¬ 
ly the case—the grower will be forced to em¬ 
ploy rakers. The diffence is, that where 
rakers can average six bushels per day, hand- 
pickers cannot average more than two bush¬ 
els ; but the general objection to raking is 
that it injures the vines, an objection which 
cannot be demonstrated on all marshes. 
Where vines are just setting in sending out 
runners four to six feet long, raking is a bad 
thing, but in portions of the marsh where the 
vines are thick and short this is not the case. 
I have had such places raked for the past six 
years, and the last time I had a bigger crop 
than ever before. Rakes are constructed as 
shown at Fig. 115. The more correct name 
would be scoops. The bottom is generally 
made out of one piece with teeth carved out, 
as shown in cut, Fig. 115, a foot long, flat on top 
running to a sharp point, tapering to the bot¬ 
tom and curved like the side board as at Fig. 
116. Soft maple plank is good for the bottom ; 
but hickory would be better. The balance is 
halt-inch stuff, the lighter the better. The 
braces to the handles are made of iron in the 
style shown, and the teeth are separate, each 
being fastened with a screw to the same band 
of iron that the forward bandies are attached 
Arrangements For Getting the Level.—Fig. 111. 
hours; then let the water off quickly and the 
pest is destroyed; but I think no fear need be 
entertained if the marsh is kept moist enough. 
Another enemy is the “ fruit worm.” This 
insect aisc frequents the high places ; it cuts 
an aperture iu the berry and entering it tele¬ 
scopes the fruit and then departs as it came, 
A flood does not always drown these out, 
but as they generally confine themselves to 
the high vines, we must conclude they are not 
fond of water. Attempts have been made to 
destroy the millers of these and of the “ fire- 
worm” by means of fires by night; but how 
much these will check the pest 1 am not pre¬ 
pared to say. 
HAND-PICKING. 
Suppose the plantation has escaped all mis¬ 
haps and the crop is now ready to be har¬ 
vested. Have the bushel boxes ready; what¬ 
ever form may be selected, make them shal¬ 
low and light. Have enough to hold the 
whole crop, as the berries are stored away to 
dry in them. If the berries are to be hand¬ 
picked, make enough peck boxes to go around. 
There should be a stove with fire-wood to 
about a dozen pickers. The 5th of September 
is here ;take your force, mostly women, with 
some children and men; arm each with a peck 
box, and let the stronger ones also carry a 
bushel box. Have the field that shows the 
ripest berries drained drier than it has been all 
Summer ; start the hands in at one corner; 
let each pick a strip about two feet wide. It is 
not necessary to tell them to get down on their 
knees—they will come to it sooner or later, 
| to it, going around the bottom. The teeth are 
three eighths of an inch apart, and the scoop 
will hold about a peck of berries. I have 
raken 15 bushels in one day with one of these, 
and can rake 20 or 25 if the berries areas thick 
on the vines as I have seen them. After har¬ 
vesting, the berries are left in whatever litter 
escaped the hands, until they are well dried. 
preparing for market. 
The market does not open for them briskly 
until October—they are then run through a 
common fanning mill with a long sieve or 
grate to separate the small from the large ; 
or they are run through a separator made 
specially for that purpose. Mr. Buzby, of 
New Jersey, has patented a machine intended 
to remove the frozen berries. It works the 
best in round berries, but there is still a great 
deal of room left for improvement. A ma¬ 
chine that will separate the rotten and frozen 
berries from the sound, and do perfect work, 
is not known. Here is room for the inventive 
genius of our countrymen—or women. A 
machine for harvesting berries is also wanted ; 
who will be the lucky man to make a for¬ 
tune by inventing one ? After the berries 
are cleaned by the mill, it is generally found 
necessary to look them over. Women and 
children are employed for this, arranged at 
both sides of a long table, with cleats on each 
side and a space partitioned off in the center 
for the refuse berries. The berries are started 
at one end, pass along, each picking out what 
she can, and when they reach the barrel or box 
Flume.—Fig. 112. 
as hand-picking is mostly done by the bushel. 
An overseer is needed to have the work 
done properly, as well as to empty the peck 
boxes when filled, and to give checks for their 
contents. It is a picturesque sight, that of one 
thousand pickers in a row, moving slowly 
along on their knees, but a large crop of ber¬ 
ries on the vines is a sight by far more pic¬ 
turesque and heart-stirring—if you own a 
big share of them I 
PICKING WITH RAKES. 
If band-pickers enough cannot be obtained— 
at the other end, they are supposed to be 
clean and ready for market. 
VARIETIES. 
There are three varieties of cranberries, 
but they are inseparably linked with inter¬ 
mediate varieties. At Fig. 117, a, a, a show 
what are classed as the Cherry ; b, b, are the 
Bugle, and c, e, c, are the Bell berries. They 
vary iu size from that of a pea to over an 
inch in diameter. The smaller are generally 
the first to ripen, and are the hardiest berries. 
There are large varieties of each of the three 
kinds, but the Bugles and Bells are generally 
ahead of the Cherries. The darker the color 
the finer-flavored the berry, except in case of 
the small tamarack berry, which is not so 
dark-red as some of the other Cherry kinds it 
is represented in shape by the first illustration. 
OTHER POINTS. 
The yield per acre has seen stated as high 
as 400 bushels. I believe this is possible, but 
I have never reached these figures. I have a 
small pocket dammed in, which contains 
about 1.5-8 acre ; last year I harvested 
325 bushels from it, and have done nearly as 
well as that before. The divisions by dams are 
mainly for protection against frost. I ex 
plained how to proceed to harvest one divis¬ 
ion : this can be drained as much as desirable. 
When you are ready for harvesting, if your 
force is large enough, each division can be pick¬ 
ed in oneday (Ihaveseeu40aorespicked in one 
day.) If the next night should threaten frost, 
you can flood the other divisions enough to 
get the water moving briskly as it rises, 
while you economize water and time by keep¬ 
ing the flooding off the fie'd you have har¬ 
vested. Continue this way until the crop is 
gathered. If your water holds out you need 
have no frozen berries. Last year till past 
the middle of October I harvested berries that 
had hardly been touched by frost. These 
dams also prove very beneficial in getting a 
uniform moisture on the marsh. The cross 
lines in the main ditch are gates as high as the 
small dams. J. D. Kruschke. 
Miami Co., Ohio 
CRANBERRY CULTURE. 
Twelve years ago I put in 3% acres of cran¬ 
berry vines and the fifth Summer following I 
got a good crop. 1 kept a strict debit and 
credit account for seven years, and my aver¬ 
age net profit was $975 per year. One year 
out of the seven it was $1,490. Four years 
in succession the yield was over 700 bushels. 
My manner of putting out the vines was as 
follows: First, thoroughly take off all turf and 
roots, cut a deep ditch around the borders of 
the meadow so as to cut off spring water,for the 
reason that it is so cold that the viues to which 
it is admitted will never bear. Every forty 
feet from the border ditch, cut others dis¬ 
charging into a large one running through the 
center of meadow. Evenly rake the surface 
of lands or beds, and after sanding four inches 
deep with clear, coarse sand, absolutely free 
from loam, set out the vines in rows 20 inches 
apart, the hills being twelve inches apart in 
the rows. Never layer the vines; always set 
them in hills, and dibble the holes for them 
Section of Box-sluice—Fig. 113. 
well through the sand into the muck or peat 
below. In the Fall of the fourth season after 
setting, spread two inches of sand over the 
vines, well covering the runners, which will 
put out bearing uprights in profusion. 
In selecting varieties of vines, always choose 
the Early Black Bell,one that is uniform in size, 
colors well allover, no white sides and is a good 
keeper. Be sure they are of fine, low growth, 
as well as of a kind that will bear a good crop 
every year, except of course, when injured by 
frosts or the vine and berry worms. All of 
the above good qualities do exist in the best 
selected kinds. In marketing the fruit, one 
year with another, it is more profitable to dis¬ 
pose of it early in the season. In following 
the above directions in putting out a cran, 
berry plantation, it must necessarily be ex¬ 
pensive, and whoever attempts the culture of 
the fruit in these days may bear iu mind that 
only the best is worth raising. 
Tool for Planting.—Fig. 114. 
In selecting a site for a cranberry meadow, 
choose one that is easily dammed, with an 
abundance of water for Winter flooding, so 
deep that the vines may not freeze into the 
ice. Draw off the water in the Spring, from 
the first to the twentieth of May, to a depth of 
18 inches below the general surface. 
S. L Geer. 
EXPERIENCE WITH CRANBERRIES 
In 1867 I selected a piece of ground just at 
the outlet of a marsh or beaver meadow, 
and drained it. Then I planted it to potatoes, 
and cultivated it until I killed the sod and 
wild grass. In the Fall I went to the wild 
cran bony beds, selected the most productive 
vines, bound them into bundles, carried them 
