Ihe RURAL NEW-YORKER 
1003 
A Talk About Cultivated Blueberries 
M aking dreams come true.— how big 
will blueberries grow? I used to call them 
swamp huckleberries and thought an occasional one 
half an inch in diameter huge. They always grew 
luxuriantly about fflie margins of our cranberry 
bogs, and as a girl I used to hunt the largest and 
best-flavored berries and dream of a field full of 
bushes as good. I knew it was a wild dream—“they" 
said huckleberries couldn't be started from cuttings, 
and it was hopeless to find enough of the very best 
bushes to plant even a small field. Then came the 
publication of “Experiments in Blueberry Culture" 
in 1910. The author, Mr. Frederick V. Coville. of 
the F. S. Department, of Agriculture, had discovered 
lots of interesting things about blueberries, and had 
succeeded in rooting a few cuttings. Perhaps my 
dream of cultivated blueberries wasn’t so wild after 
all. Possibly if seemed hopeless only because all the 
bits of knowledge that could make it real were scat¬ 
tered and jumbled like the pieces of a great big 
picture puzzle. 
COLLECTIVE KNOWLEDGE.—Since 1911 I have 
been hunting those bits of knowledge and fitting them 
together. Mr. Coville furnished very 
important pieces to start with, and is 
always finding more. Experience of 
three generations in cultivating the 
cranberry, a near cousin of the blue¬ 
berry. made a good background. My 
father’s financial support and business 
experience is an indispensable part: 
perhaps it is the frame that holds the 
picture together. The folks who picked 
wild huckleberries for market and 
knew where extra fine bushes grew 
gave valuable bits: some little pieces 
I discovered myself: others have been 
contributed by many different people. 
Enough of the puzzle has been fitted 
together to show that my old dream 
was but a faint shadowing of the possi¬ 
bilities. Now I dream of cultivated 
blueberries, shipped by the trainload— 
blueberry specials—to every part of the 
country. The little berries of today's 
dreams are half an inch in diameter. 
And the big ones? 'Well, it is hard to 
measure a dream accurately, but they 
are at least an inch across. And these 
big blueberries will be raised on land 
that is now waste, because too acid for 
commercial crops, though .iust what the 
blueberries need. Raising all these 
blueberries will give healthful, remun¬ 
erative employment to lots of people. 
And—but you can dream for yourself: 
only if you are to share my confidence 
that this dream is not wild, that some 
day it will come true, you must know 
what lias already been accomplished. 
WHAT 1IAS BEEN DONE.—We 
have 20 acres of blueberries under cul¬ 
tivation. Some of these acres are set 
entirely with plants propagated from 
wild bushes selected for unusually fine 
fruit. Others, comprising the Govern¬ 
ment Blueberry Trial Grounds, are set with seed¬ 
lings from the F. S. Department of Agriculture. All 
improvement of blueberries must start with the 
selection of wild plants. When these are propagated 
or increased from parts of the plant itself, that is. 
by cuttings, by taking rooted suckers from the side 
of the plant or by other methods of division, all the 
resulting plants are practically the same. We have 
learned to root blueberry cuttings, and have several 
thousand little plants so started from a few of the 
best wild bushes. This alone means greatly improved 
blueberries, for with the very remarkable variation 
in size and flavor of Hie wild fruit few pickers ever 
find berries equal to those of Rubel. Sam or Harding, 
as we have named three of our best wild stocks. 
Many of these berries are live-eigliths of an inch 
across and an occasional one nearly or quite three- 
bnirths of mi Inch in diameter. 
IMPROVEMENT BY BREEDING.—With such 
selected bushes to start with, further improvements 
<an be made by breeding. Air. Coville lias shown 
Hial blueberries are sterile to their own pollen. This 
means that before llu* wee berry will "set" or the 
•seeds ripen, pollen from a flower on another blue- 
b (> ii,\ plant, one which has not been propagated from 
same stuck, must be brought iu contact with the 
stigma of the blueberry flower. In the wild, or in 
the field, pollen is carried from hush to bush by bees 
and other insects. Tn the greenhouse at Washington, 
from which insects are excluded. Air. Coville 
plays the part of a highly intelligent bee by carrying 
pollen from flowers of one selected plant and apply¬ 
ing it to the stigmas of flowers on other selected 
plants. The plant from which the pollen came is the 
father plant and the plant which bears the berry is 
the mother plant. From seeds so produced are 
grown the plants tested In the Government Blueberry 
Trial Grounds. These plants inherit different com¬ 
binations of the characteristics of their parents just 
as human children do. Some are not so good, many 
are very like the parent plants, and a few are much 
better. In 1911 a plant, which we call the Sony, was 
found in New Jersey, the largest berries on which 
were five-eighths of an inch in diameter. This Mr. 
Coville crossed with a plant, which he calls the 
Brooks, from New Hampshire. The Brooks berries 
grow very little more than one-half inch in diameter. 
Over .3,000 seedlings of this cross have for several 
years borne fruit in the Trial Grounds. Two of them. 
which as yet we call simply (120A ami 83UC, have 
much finer berries than any of the others, the largest 
being but little short of three-fourths of an inch in 
diameter. With such results, and with more recently 
discovered parents whose berries grow nearly and 
quite three-fourths of an inch across, is it entirely 
wild to dream of inch blueberries? Seedlings of tin* 
better plants are iu the field, but too young to pro¬ 
duce fruit. 
PROFIT POSSIBILITIES.—For the “blueberry 
specials" dream to come true blueberry culture must 
needs he profitable. What is there to show? Well, 
the sample is small enough, but the promise is such 
that we look forward to planting a hundred acres to 
Ylelil 
Price reeeii e,l 
Gross 
Average 
per acre 
per tm, 
Yeitr 
per tmsli 
plants S'.vt' 
f. n. I>. 
ii»*r 
ifiit; 
.344 qts. 
16 bu. 
$8.09 
8128.09 
1917 
.768 qts. 
33 bu. 
8.09 
264.90 
191S 
.Hit qts. 
23 bu. 
9.60 
229.99 
1919 
.932 qts. 
39 F, bu 
19.99 
300,50 
blueberries. Our largest crop, that of 1919.- slightly 
exceeded 390 bushels, and was produced in great part 
on little plants yit^l<1 ingr for the first or second time. 
The possible yield and receipts per acre can best be 
judged from the above record of the first acre of 
P.rooks-Sooy seedlings, set in September of 1913, 
when the plants were as large as they could be 
grown in two-inch pots. 
These plants have not nearly reached their full 
size or productive capacity, and the possibilities of 
increasing the yield per acre in quantity and quality 
are indicated by the record of 020A, which was one 
of this lot of seedlings. The plant was no larger 
than tiie others, but in 1917 it produced 2\U quarts 
as against an average per plant of about three- 
fourths of a quart. In 1918 its crop was 1% quarts, 
compared to an average of a little move than one 
pint. As the size and quality of the berries were 
much above the average they should command a 
higher price. 
FURTHER PLANTINGS.—Like every practical 
farmer, we discount heavily the possible proceeds 
which can be figured from this data. Even so, it 
looks good to us, and we now have enough plants 
started from cuttings of 020A to set more than an 
acre. 'These will be ready for Hie field next Septem¬ 
ber. Other acres will then be sot with Rubel. Sam 
and Harding. The rapidity with which the “blue¬ 
berry specials" dream can be realized will depend 
largely upon the success of next Sep¬ 
tember's planting, which will be the 
first area of any amount to be set with 
selected and named varieties of blue¬ 
berries. 
NEEDED.— 
selected and developed 
here in New Jersey must be tried in 
many parts of the country before we 
can know their limits of adaptability 
to climate. Iu order to develop varie¬ 
ties suited to different climatic condi¬ 
tions fine parent plants are needed 
from other sections of the country, 
especially from New England, from the 
C’arolinas and from States bordering on 
the Great Lakes. We will pay $50 
each and shipping charges for plants 
with three or four berries tliree-fourths 
of an inch in diameter, or as large as 
a cent. Wild plants with large berries 
which do not come up to this require¬ 
ment- should be tried under cultivation 
near their point of origin. 
SOIL REQUIREMENTS.—The essen¬ 
tials of blueberry culture are an acid 
soil, preferably one composed of peat 
and sand, and a supply of water so 
controlled that the soil is continually 
moist but never sodden during the 
growing season. The necessity of good 
drainage for blueberries cannot be too 
strongly emphasized. We have lost 
more plants from the lack of it than 
from all other causes combined. For 
commercial blueberry culture it is ad¬ 
visable to employ lauds which are nat¬ 
urally acid, and on which wild blue¬ 
berries or similar plants are already 
growing. Great areas of such land are 
found iu many parts of the country. 
IN THE HOME GARDEN.—In many 
home gardens the soil may be fitted 
for the needs of enough blueberry plants to supply 
the family table. The first essential is to make sure 
of good drainage: the second to provide a soil of 
saml and peat or partially decayed leaves; the third 
to see that water can be given during hot. dry 
weather. In gardens with light sandy soil the addi¬ 
tion of partially decayed leaves will probably be 
sufficient. A layer a foot deep should bo mixed with 
the upper six inches of soil. In gardens with heavy 
clay soil such a mixture of one-third sand to two- 
thirds partially decayed leaves should be placed in 
trenches or on top of the ground, depending on 
whether, in that particular garden, it is more neces¬ 
sary to conserve moisture or to facilitate drainage. 
The care of blueberry plants set in specially prepared 
soil is very simple. It consists of watering when 
necessary and of maintaining about them by annual 
additions a heavy mulch of leaves. These leaves 
should he of oak or some variety which rot slowly. 
Maple leaves and others which rot quickly will not 
maintain the necessary acidity in the soil. The 
leaves supply all plant food necessary. Manure or 
artificial fertilizers should be avoided, as they 
are likely to be injurious. Every fine wild bush 
i hat is successfully brought under cultivation, 
every group of the ^elected varieties of blueberries 
EXTENDED TESTS 
The varieties 
A cluster of Harding blueberries, natural size. The large berries only were ripe. 
As blueberries ripen they rapidly increase iu size. The Ilarding F the smallest 
berry being extensively propagated. 
