1901 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
499 
MODERN CRANBERRY CULTURE. 
K8SENTIAL, PHINCirLES OF THK BUSINESS. 
How to Start a Bog. 
Part III. 
SUMMER WORK.—^The first Summer after a bog 
is set out it should be gone over once every week, and 
all weeds and bushes pulled up and carried off. For 
a month after setting the water should be kept as 
high as possible in the ditches. If the vines are slow 
in starting a teaspoonful of fertilizer should be 
dropped upon each hill. Keep the weeds and brush 
mowed around the bog, and if possible have a road 
around it. 
INSECTS seldom trouble a bog until it is fully 
vined over and not always then. The insects that do 
the most damage are the fire worm and the fruit 
worm. The fire worm, (so called because the vines 
destroyed by it look as if they were burned) eats the 
roots of the vine, causing the tops to turn red and 
die. It is no use to try to kill this insect by spraying 
with poi.sons, because the poison will not reach it. It 
is eating away under the sand, safe from all liquids 
but one, and that is water. Nothing but flowing will 
put an end to thj fire worm, and the water should 
stay on all Winter. Fortunately, the worms are slow 
workers, and they generally confine themselves to a 
small portion of the bog. They do not get on every 
bog, and a grower might be in the cranberry business 
20 yeara and never be troubled with them. In a re¬ 
gion where there are but few bogs they are seldom, 
if ever, seen. The fruit worm gets into the flower 
and grows with the fruit. A good spraying with 
Paris-green, hellebore or tobacco just before the 
flower opens, will prevent it from doing any damage. 
However, as insects do not trouble young vines, a 
beginner in cranberry culture need not trouble him¬ 
self about them. 
THE SECOND YEAR the vines ought 
to spread considerably, and in the Fall 
there should be on each acre a few bar¬ 
rels of very handsome berries that will 
bring, if properly packed, the top mar¬ 
ket price. Where the crop is small, it 
is a good plan to ship in crates, each one 
holding a bushel, and to ship as soon as 
picked. The work of screening and 
packing can be done out of doors, and at 
night the fruit is covered with a canvas, 
it is well to build a cranberry house the 
third Summer, and its size should de¬ 
pend on the number of acres of bog. 
Where the crop is likely to be a thou¬ 
sand barrels a house that is 20x30 feet, 
with 14-foot posts and a square pitch 
roof is large enough. There should be 
plenty of windows in it for ventilation, 
and it should be set on a piece of ground 
high enough so that water will run 
away from the house. A building of this 
size can be built cheaply and by anyone 
who is at all skilled in the use of carpenter’s tools. 
A good way to do it is to lay two sills (4x6 is large 
enough) lengthwise and then put on 2x6 floor string¬ 
ers 16 inches apart on centers. Floor this all over, 
and then set posts and studs on top of floor. Where 
the windows are going to be, leave room enough be¬ 
tween the studs for the sashes. In this way it saves 
the expense of window frames. The doors should be 
sliding ones, and hung on the outside, one on the 
front end and one on each side. There shouid be a 
.sliding door on the front end of the upper story, so 
that empty barrels and boxes can be put up there 
from the outside. The steps from the lower to the 
upper story should be in one corner, and hinged at 
the upper end, so that they can be hung up out of 
the way when not in use. As there are likely to be 
from 30 to 50 barrels of berries per acre the third 
Fall, it is necessary to make some definite arrange¬ 
ments for screening and packing. 
MACHINERY.—Of course nearly all growers use 
a separator, which is a machine fan and dropping 
arrangement inside that will throw out dirt, stones 
and rotten berries. This machine works with a 
crank, and is turned by hand. If the berries are dry 
—and by the way, berries should not be picked when 
they are wet with dew or rain—a man can run 
through 30 or 40 barrels a day, which is enough to 
keep two screens going. When we speak of a 
screen, we mean one that is large enough for five wo¬ 
men to sit around and look over the berries. This 
means one screener at the mouth of the screen, who 
is called the runner, and two other screeners on each 
side. Most growers build their own screens, and they 
are easily made of narrow strips of pine nailed one- 
fourth of an inch apart on the liottom of a three- 
sided frame that is six inches high, tapering from 
four feet wide at the top to eight inches wide at the 
lower end, and 10 feet long. This is set up on horses 
with the lower end just a little higher than a barrel. 
and the upper and wider end about eight inches high¬ 
er still. 
PICKING AND SHIPPING.—Many growers ship 
their berries in ventilated barrels, and where early 
shipments are made this is a good idea, but if ber¬ 
ries are to be held for late shipment they should be 
put by the pickers into bushel boxes and piled up, 
dirt and all, in the cranberry house, and left un¬ 
touched until ready to screen for immediate ship¬ 
ment. They should have plenty of air and, unless it 
is freezing, doors and windows should be left open. 
It is better not to harvest with a scoop until the 
bog is fully covered by the vines, which it ought to 
be by the fourth year. The flrst year a scoop is used 
many berries will be dropped on account of long run¬ 
ners which will pull up and tangle in the teeth of the 
scoop. But the berries can be picked up and after 
the harvesting is over the runners can be raked up, 
cut off and carried to the upland. Don’t be afraid of 
injuring the vines, for such a pruning does them 
good. The next Fall there will be plenty of new 
shoots that have grown, and they will be all up¬ 
rights. By raking out the runners each Fall after 
harvesting, a grower will soon have nothing but up¬ 
right vines on it, and he will have good crops that 
can be easily scooped. Cranberries will not grow on 
runners, and a scoop will not work in them, hence, 
it is best to get rid of them as soon as possible. There 
are many objections to the scoop on the principle 
that it injures the vines. Of course a scoop will pull 
up runners, but runners are the deadheads of a cran¬ 
berry bog. They will not bear fruit, and they cover 
fruit from the sun, so that it is likely to root before 
ripening, and if there is anything that will pull them 
up it is a good thing. Heavy vines will not bear 
heavy crops, but thin vines, if all uprights, will bear 
large berries and plenty of them. What is more, the 
sun has a chance to shine down among them, and 
ripen the fruit early and evenly. 
ODD POINTS.—When intending to keep cran¬ 
berries a few weeks before shipping, it is well to pick 
them a little green. They will ripen in the boxes, 
and will keep much better. Handle them as little as 
possible, and never screen them until ready to ship. 
Where the bog can be flowed in Winter, it is a good 
plan to flow as early as the middle of November, and 
keep the water on until the flrst of April. When 
vines are seven or eight years old, sprinkle about 
half an inch of sand among them in the Fall after 
harvesting, and spray with the juice of tobacco stems 
in the following Spring. To get rid of old vines and 
start a new variety, it is best to burn them off, re- 
sand and then set out the new kind, if the vines are 
old and do not bear fruit, and it is desirable to con¬ 
tinue the same variety, mow them off like grass, and 
in two years the bog will be covered with new shoots. 
There is much more that might be written about 
cranberry culture, but I have done all I intended, and 
that was to give a description of practical methods 
now in vogue among growers, for the use of begin¬ 
ners. A little experience will teach a grower more 
than one could tell him, and I hope that these articles 
will give him a start in the right direction. 
F. A. MAKEPEACE. 
HARD CONDITIONS AND COWHORN TURNIPS 
A Short Sermon from Two Rival Texts. 
The account of successful reclaiming of hopelessly 
poor soil by means of the Cowhorn turnip (R. N.-Y., 
April 20, page 286) will prompt many readers to ex¬ 
periment with that unusual crop. The conditions of 
our New England farming allow of no particular 
staple crop, unless it be the grass crop. With $20 
hay the past two seasons, what an Incentive, could 
the farmer have had timely foresight, and been pre¬ 
pared to sell hay! Still, the hay must be kept and 
fed out if fertility is to be kept up. The problem 
Is, how both to keep the stock and still sell the hay, 
and the solution is to double the yield of grass, pro¬ 
ducing the former amount from half the area, and 
keeping the other half In such a rotation of tilled 
crops as will support the stock. Each successive 
Spring we read the same lesson from the published 
crop outlook: “Grass light except in fields newly 
laid down.” The average mowing land is yielding 
but about one-third of a full crop, according to our 
newer knowledge of grass culture. To sell the hay 
from one-half the arable land and Winter-feed the 
usual number of stock from the other half, would 
transform many a hopelessly encumbered farm to a 
condition of prosperity, bring back the owner’s cour¬ 
age where it is now on the wane, and make a sweep¬ 
ing change for the good in the history of families. 
Quoting my other text from the Brevities in the 
same issue, “The best work most of us do is squeezed 
out of us by the pressure of hard conditions.” Now, 
the hard conditions of New England farming have 
brought about the abandonment of many worthy 
farms, it is true, but have not materially injured 
those who stuck manfully by the farms. 'Easy pros¬ 
perity has been the rock upon which so many wrecks 
have foundered. I live just out of a town which a 
dozen years ago was reveling in “prosperity,” so- 
called; the results of unwarranted profits in the 
manufacture of cheap shoes. Of course consumers 
were paying too high a price for these goods; and 
can that be called a true prosperity which cast a 
blight upon neighboring rural life? Neither the 
farmer’s sons nor the new comer from country dis¬ 
tricts could be coaxed to remain upon the farm. The 
high wages induced extravagant living, resulting in 
corrupted morals and a large death rate among the 
young men. The population became unfitted for the 
hard conditions which speedily followed a readjust¬ 
ment of wages, often to one-third the former rate. 
New England farming has suffered by the contrast 
presented by overpaid industries in other lines, ren¬ 
dering the farmer dissatisfied and rob¬ 
bing the farm of its most energetic 
blood in many cases. But I cannot see 
how making the farmer’s conditions 
harder can minister to his good. The 
farmer’s prosperity is true prosperity. 
The dollar he takes is a clean dollar, 
while the overpaid factory worker’s 
wage both defrauded the buyer of poor 
goods and wrought his ruin through 
town vices. Enlarge the farmer’s op¬ 
portunity to create new wealth, and we 
have a prosperity which prospers both 
himself and others. The average farm¬ 
er Is living with his eyes closetl as to 
his true status, both as to the intrinsic 
honesty of his true wealth-creating 
labor and the degree of prosperity 
which attends his work. His children 
will be respected, both on and off the 
farm, to a degree in wide contrast with 
the town dweller, the average course of 
whom is downward, not always moral¬ 
ly, but at least physically. The hope of 
the nation is the farm’s prosperity. How to conserve 
fertility is the ever-present problem. To haul ma¬ 
nure is arduous, and its expense may counteract all 
gains. The forces of nature work without wages, 
and they will create fertility if properly directed. 
What seeds to plant in order to allow Nature to en¬ 
rich the soil is apparently the most pertinent farm 
problem. Will the Ckiwhorn turnip prove to be the 
efficient renovator of barren soils? If not, some 
other plant will, and its discoverer become a public 
benefactor. r. w. proctor. 
APPLYING PARIS-GREEN TO POTATOES. 
Seemingly in our efforts to destroy Potato beetles we 
have tried everything within the range of poisons, to¬ 
gether with a great variety of methods of applying 
them, varying from a dusting box to a spray pump. 
I^ast season we hit on a little device that proved sin¬ 
gularly simple and very satisfactory on the whole. 
Two pieces of heavy coarse burlap cloth, each about 
two feet square, are used, the edges being gathered up 
in the hand, as is shown in Fig. 212. A piece of this 
burlap taken in each hand, and carried over each 
row of potatoes, will readily enable one to cover a 
small patch with plaster and Paris-green in a com¬ 
paratively short time. Last season we used the pre¬ 
pared plaster and Paris-green, such as is sold com¬ 
mercially, with very satisfactory results. If one 
wish to prepare his own plaster, it can be readily 
done, and useil just as satisfactorily as the commer¬ 
cial stuff. In using dry plaster it is commonly best 
to put on early in the morning, when the vines are 
damp with dew. It will thus stick better, and com¬ 
monly proves more effectual in destroying the beetles. 
In case of rain directly after applying, I do not know 
that it will wash off any more readily than Paris- 
green applied in any other manner. We like to apply 
the poison just aliout the time the young are ready 
to put in their best work. Save in uncommon sea¬ 
sons we have succeeded in exterminating Potato bugs 
quite effectually at one plastering. 
Shiawassee Co., Mich. c. v. Reynolds. 
MAP SHOWING THE LOCATION OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. Fie. 213. 
