168 WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
to cranberries. Such lands may often be stripped of most of 
the surface muck, to be carted to the dry lands, which, when 
sufficiently rotted, may be spread and incorporated into the 
surface, furnishing a soil of great value. In the mean time 
the swamp, wherever it can be flooded at pleasure, should be 
fitted for the culture of cranberries. The manner of rearing, 
harvesting and marketing these berries, and the profits of the 
crop, belong to another hand, and must be passed, however 
much we might be disposed to write of them. The wet lands 
of Wisconsin are situated in the narrow belt, where these ber¬ 
ries grow. When the character of this soil, the facilities for 
* 
flooding these swamps, and the climate are understood, and ap¬ 
plied in practice, these swamps will be found admirably 
adapted to the growth of this crop. The unlimited demand 
for cranberries, the prices they always command, the facilities 
with which they may be transported to distant markets, and 
the limited region in which they can be grown, indicate that 
they will always command a remunerative price for labor be¬ 
stowed, and that no danger exists of a glutted market, even if 
every piece of land which would produce them were planted, 
and well stocked with vines. This is the crop of all others on 
which the farmers, who possess such lands can rely for profit, 
and every piece of land that will produce them, should be 
planted with cranberries in preference to any other crop. 
Those portions of the swamps not adapted to the culture of 
cranberries, may be sowed to some of the wet-meadow grasses, 
of which the fowl-meadow is preferable as a hay crop, and is 
not liable to be destroyed by the frosts and ice in winter. 
Large hay crops fed on the farm, supply an important element 
for enriching the soil, and are the basis of large piles of ma¬ 
nure for the cultivated fields. Other portions of these swamps 
might be profitably planted with the American larch, black 
ash and white cedar, and thus be made to yield large profits, 
in supplying timber, fuel and shelter to the cultivated fields. 
Third.— The lands intermediate between the swamps and 
the dry lands. These we have in great variety. Some por- 
