Air and moisture are the chief requisites for the thriving of the cranberry plant. It is cultivated in America on a soil of peat or vegetable mould, free from loam and clay, and cleared of turf, and having a surface layer of clean sand. The sand, which needs renewal every two or three years, is necessary for the vigorous existence of the plants, and serves both to keep the underlying soil cool and damp, and to check the growth of grass and weeds. The ground must be thoroughly drained, and should be provided with a supply of water and a dam for flooding the plants during winter to protect them from frost, and occasionally at other seasons to destroy insect pests; but the use of springwater should be avoided. The flavour of the fruit is found to be improved by growing the plants in a soil enriched with well-rotted dung, and by supplying them with less moisture than they obtain in their natural habitats. Propagation is effected by means of cuttings, of which the wood should be wiry in texture, and the leaves of a greenish - brown colour. In America, where, in the. vicinity of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, the cultivation of the cranberry commenced early in the present century, wide tracts of waste land have been utilized for that purpose,—low, easily flooded, marshy ground, worth originally not more than from $10 to $20 an acre, having been made to yield annually $200 or $300 worth of the fruit per acre. The yield varies between 50 and 400 bushels an acre, but 100 bushels, or about 35 barrels, is estimated to be the average production when the plants have begun to bear well. In .1871 there were in New* Jersey about 2000 acres in fruiting, which in the previous year had produced 150,000 bushels of cranberries, and 4000 acres more had been prepared and planted. A total of 75,000 barrels was obtained in 1869 in the States and Territories of America. Cranberries should be gathered when ripe and dry, otherwise they do not keep well. The darkest-coloured berries are those which are most esteemed. The picking of the fruit begins in New Jersey in October, at the close of the blackberry and whortleberry season, and often lasts until the coming in of cold weather. From 3 to 4 bushels a day may be collected by good workers. New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Baltimore are tho leading American markets for cranberries, whence they arc exported to the West Indies, England, and France in great quantities. England was formerly supplied by Lincolnshire and Norfolk with abundance of the common cranberry, which it now largely imports from Sweden and Russia. The fruit is much used for pies and tarts, and also for making an acid summer beverage. The Mount Ida berry, cowberry, or red whortleberry, Vaccinium Vitis idaea, is sometimes sold for the cranberry. The Tasmanian and the Australian cranberries are the produce respectively of Λstroloma lιumifusum and Lissantlιe saρida, plants of the order Epacridaceae.

See Trowbridge, The Cranberry Culturist, Newhaven, U.S., 1869; Report of the. Commissioner of Agriculture for 1869, Washington, 1870; Report of the American Institute of New York for 1869-70, Albany, 1870.