Cranberry bog

“ The greater part of the floor of the valley would be a more or less continuous cover made up of low-growing members of the family. There might be a quarter to half an acre in cranberry bog, serving purposes of scenic effect and affording a lesson in economic botany at one and the same time. Other plants that should appear over considerable areas, in simulation of the way they occur in nature, are leatherleaf, Labrador-tea, Rhodora (if it can be made to thrive) , Kalmia angustifolia, Kalmia glauca, Andromeda polifolia. ”

“ Only the hard, horny parts, which serve for its bones, are left.
There is another small plant, called the sun-dew, which eats insects. Any of you who live near a cranberry bog can find sun-dew growing on the edges of the bog. It is a plant that lives in wet places.
The sun-dew has a number of leaves about the size and shape of pearl shirt-buttons. They grow on short stems close to the ground. The leaves are covered with red hairs. These hairs are called tentacles. As many as a hundred and fifty will grow on one little leaf. ”

“ The Cranberry is propagated, through the means of vines which are procured from old bogs; they are cut or mowed off, preferably from vines not more than three or four years old. In sorting these cuttings, care should be taken to remove all the dead wood, and only the bright, clean cuttings used for planting. Most growers estimate five barrels of cuttings to the acre of bog, as they use from four to six cuttings in each setting. Some growers prefer taking runners twenty to thirty inches in length, and doubling them over at time of planting ”

“ I know some patches of such meadows today where the cranberry has borne fruit hundreds of years. These natural berries are better than the cultivated ones, probably because the sand with which the made bog is covered has diminished the supply of organic acids. The general consumer has not yet discovered that the native berry weighs a number of [Pg 510] pounds more to the bushel than the cultivated one, and has a richer flavor. In 1855 the statistics of Plymouth showed an acre and a half of cranberry bog valued at $15—while at the present time there are 984 acres valued at $393,600. ”

“ The Cranberry will only grow in moist soil, or peat earth. It succeeds very well on the muddy margin of a pond; particularly if a row of stakes be driven into the water two or three feet from the edge, and lined with stones, on which is laid a quantity of bog earth. In this earth the cranberries are planted, and they will require no after-care except the occasional trimming into shape of their long runners. The common cranberry is a native of England, Scotland, and indeed of all the north of Europe ”

“ They form one of the most characteristic features of the landscape. You see them from the car windows, spreading out over level acres, or skirting, with varying width, the running streams; you see them in winding valleys, far below the carriage road; you come upon them suddenly in the woods,—strangely trim, rectangular clearings, darkly shut in by a dense swamp growth. The culture of the cranberry has been reduced to a science. A swamp is cleared of its wild growth of trees and bushes and leveled like a floor; six inches of clear sand are carted on, to cover the heavy bog soil ”

“ They form a standing preserve on the tea-tables in most of the settlers' houses; but for richness of flavour, and for beauty of appearance, I admire the high-bush cranberries; these are little sought after, on account of the large flat seeds, which prevent them from being used as a jam: the jelly, however, is delightful, both in colour and flavour.
The bush on which this cranberry grows resembles the guelder rose. The blossoms are pure white, and grow in loose umbels; they are very ornamental, when in bloom, to the woods and swamps, skirting the lakes. ”

“ In suitable soil the crop could hardly prove a failure, with care and attention to the selection of the plants at a proper season.
The Cranberry forms one of the sub-orders of the heath family (Ericaceæ) , and its delicate pink-tinted flowers are not less beautiful than many of the exotic plants of that tribe, which we rear with care and pains in the green-house and conservatory; yet, growing in our midst as it were, few persons that luxuriate in the rich preserve that is made from the ripe fruit, have ever seen the elegant trailing-plant, with its graceful blossoms and myrtle-like foliage. ”

“ A most glorious sight that same hundred-acre bog must have been a couple of weeks later, when the berries had ripened, and a carpet of rosy redness blushed upwards to the waning sun! Yet 1858 (the even year) was a bad season for cranberries,—the yield was only sufficient to pay for the land and fencing, with a modicum over to begin 1859 with! ”

“ So cranberries grew to be institutions in the Pines, and all the bogs for miles around the site of the first experiment were hired by sanguine farmers. But the cranberry-cultivator has one enemy, which is neither bird, nor worm, nor blight, but biped,—a Rat, two-legged, erect, or moderately so, talking, even, in audible and intelligible speech,—the Pine Rat, namely. Few but New Jerseymen, and of them chiefly those who dwell about the forest, have heard of this human species ”

“ Perhaps all Americans know that cranberry sauce goes with Thanksgiving turkey. No country in the world has so many cranberries as North America. The bogs of Cape Cod are famous for this fruit, and the Pilgrims of Plymouth colony knew of them, and served them on their rustic tables. Now the wild marshes along the Atlantic are nearly all under cultivation, and the product has been increased many fold. Fully 1,000,000 bushels are marketed when the crop is good. The same is being done with the bogs in the vicinity of the Great Lakes. Cranberries grow in untold quantities on the marshes of Alaska. ”

“ The bog–garden is a home for the numerous children of the wild that will not thrive on our harsh, bare, and dry garden borders, but must be cushioned on moss, and associated with their own relatives in moist peat soil. Many beautiful plants, like the Wind Gentian and Creeping Harebell, grow on our own bogs and marshes, much as these are now encroached upon. But even those acquainted with the beauty of the plants of our own bogs have, as a rule, but a feeble notion of the multitude of charming plants, natives of northern and temperate countries, whose home is the open marsh or boggy wood. ”

“ WHY THE JUNIPER HAS BERRIES.
Three cranberries once lived together in a meadow. They were sisters, but they did not look alike, for one was white, and one was red, and one was green. Winter came, and the wind blew cold. "I wish we lived nearer the wigwam," said the white cranberry timidly. "I am afraid that Hoots, the bear, will come. What should we do?"
"The women in the wigwam are afraid as well as we," the red cranberry said. "I heard them say they wished the men would come back from the hunt." ”

“ News Editor of the Astoria Evening Budget.
The bird with a polished Benny and a bamboo look-good in Boston walks down the street. What is he!’ A cranberry merchant, durn near every -time! For Cape Cod cranberries are worth money, and money buys nifty scenery.
Presto the scene to the lower Columbia river district. A Japalac car. Riding togs. Swell armor. What is it! Cranberry king! yes and no. For the newspapermen of the lower Columbia river district besides dumping dead type are gathering ripe cranberries. This is cranberry time, and a bunch of news hounds are coming cranberry kings. ”

“ I had been amusing myself with imagining that I heard the little people of the bog, but here was the great dragon, the very devil himself, sunning his black hulk on a fairy acre of bog grass. At its further end I saw his tail, as large as my forearm at the base, tapering with alligator-like corrugations to its tip. ”

“ At a little distance below, a bog, with its attendant pools of dark moss-water, which shine amidst the black chaotic mass around them, and look blue by their reflection of the sky—with a half-ruined and roofless killogie, or kiln for drying corn and malt, standing on a sloping bank at no great distance from them. ”

“ The cranberry plant is a low, trailing, evergreen shrub, with very small, smooth, unserrated leaves, and bright rose-coloured flowers, having a four-toothed calyx and a corolla deeply cleft into four segments, which curve backwards like those of the common nightshade, a flower to which, in shape and size they bear much resemblance, though differing in many other respects. They grow in small clusters at the ends of the branches, one blossom on each long curved flower-stalk ”

“ On it thou wilt see an emerald goblet studded with rubies and filled with heather ale. That must thou secure and carry away; but whilst thou art doing so let no word cross thy lips. For this enchanted ground whereon we dance may look solid to mortal eyes, but in reality it is not so. 'Tis but a quaking bog, and under it is a great lake, wherein dwelleth a fearsome Monster, and if thou so much as utter a word while thy foot resteth upon it, thou wilt fall through the bog and perish in the waters beneath. ”

“ For quite half an hour we were entangled in this absurdly insignificant bog. In getting about in a mire, the only thing to be done is to leap from one spot to another where there seems to be sufficient growth of water-plants and moss to stay one up. ”

“ Drifting about from one shore to another, touching at different points, and frequently exposed to strong winds while in transit, the bog becomes a resting place for numerous varieties of light seeds. It is, further, sometimes colonized by the plants of the region near which it may be situated. Thus the number of species of plants established upon it tends to rise; and floating bogs of long standing are scenes of very sharp struggle for existence among a considerable number of alien plants. ”

“ He dived at a clump of tag-alders, and emerging, confronted Jones's Mountain.
The wanderer sat down in a clear place and fixed his eyes on the summit. His mouth opened widely, and his body swayed at times. The little man and the peak stared in silence.
A lazy lake lay asleep near the foot of the mountain. In its bed of water-grass some frogs leered at the sky and crooned. The sun sank in red silence, and the shadows of the pines grew formidable. The expectant hush of evening, as if some thing were going to sing a hymn, fell upon the peak and the little man. ”

“ It lies beneath a sunless sky,
Deep in the entrails of a bog;
Gnarled willows hide it, lifting high
Their tortured arms; and never frog,
Nor newt, nor toad, nor dragonfly
Dare come within its deadly fog. ”

“ Writer's cramp, or Scrivener's palsy, a common disease affecting those in the habit of constant writing, the muscles refusing to obey only on attempting to write. [O. Fr. crampe; cf. Dut. kramp, Ger. krampf.]
Cran, kran, n. a measure of capacity in Scotland for herrings when just taken out of the net. It amounts to 371⁄2 imperial gallons, and comprises about 750 herrings on an average.—Coup the cran (Scot.) , to be upset. [Prob. from Gael. crann, a measure.]
Cranberry, kran′ber-i, n. a genus of small evergreen shrubs growing in peaty bogs and marshy grounds: the berry much used for tarts. ”

“ After proving themselves worthy of the Ocean Spray label, cranberries for the fresh market go to packaging machines. Those for ready-to-serve products go either to wash tanks for immediate processing or to freezers which hold them until they’re needed.
Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc. is a national cooperative with grower-members in five cranberry-growing states: Massachusetts, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Washington and Oregon. They produce an annual harvest of over 200 million pounds of cranberries. ”

“ In the early part of the day we crossed some ridges of sandstone, and towards noon we travelled over granite, similar to that which abounds in the neighbourhood of Fort Enterprize. Much wood was seen in a valley far to the westward, but the hills over which our course lay were quite naked. The bog whortleberry (vaccinium uliginosum,) however, grew abundantly on these hills, and as its fruit was now in the highest perfection, the men at every resting-place threw themselves down, and indulged freely, without sustaining any injury. ”

“ But a stomach with the cubic capacity of a hectolitre needed more than this!
The bog is veiled in a steaming mist, which hangs like cloud-lakes over the reeds. The moisture penetrates everywhere, and trembling drops hang from everything; and the thousands upon thousands of spiders’ webs show up in all their marvellous workmanship.
Thickets of willow and drooping birches cast black shadows all along the ridges and banks, and large, thick swarms of gnats hang silently in the air. Only a leaping fish or a bathing swallow disturbs the deep morning stillness. ”

“ When the children resorted to the cranberry marsh to obtain a supply of berries for their mother, they often saw the beautiful meadow lark, crouching among the reeds, or flying slowly and steadily away, as they approached her, uttering her lisping, melancholy note, which sounded like, "et-se-de-ah," and sometimes, "tai-sedilio." ”

“ But the Frog, as soon as he had received her promise, drew his head under the water and dived down. Presently he swam up again with the ball in his mouth, and threw it on the grass. The King's daughter was full of joy [8] when she again saw her beautiful plaything; and, taking it up, she ran off immediately. "Stop! stop!" cried the Frog; "take me with thee. I cannot run as thou canst." But all his croaking was useless; although it was loud enough, the King's daughter did not hear it, but, hastening home, soon forgot the poor Frog, who was obliged to leap back into the fountain. ”