Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1894-11-15

Of cranberry pickers is gathering to
collect the tart and popular fruit
and start it on it's fall and winter
campaign against the turkey, The
harvesting of the crop gives employ
ment to probably 5000 persons, says
the New York Sun. There ought to
be about 100000 bushels of cranber-
ries picked from Jersey marshes this
season.
John Webb, one-legged down east
or, went to Ocean county many years
ago, and for years managed to make
a living picking wild cranberries and
doing such other work as the nature
of Ocean county farms required. He
finally managed to get possession of
a small piece of low swamp land
where the wild, cranberr ylgrew. In
the fall of 1857, Webb made the
discovery that in places where sand
had been washed from the high
ground and carried down upon the
fat bottoms of the cranberry marsh
the vines grew more luXuriantly, and
the berries on them were larger, of
better flavor and of heavier bearing
That set John Webb to thinking.
He pulled the pine and cedar stumps,
and other foreign substances out of
his little swamp, leveled its peaty
bottom, and over it all spread a COW
ering of sand three inches deep. He
dug bitches in the marsh, dividing it
into number of oblong beds. The
result of his work was that in three
years he had such a crop of cranber-
ries on his bog as was never seen or
heard of before. The fame Of John
Webb spread to the remOteSt cram
berry marshes of Massachusetts and
Wisconsin. His name is now a house
hold word wherever cranberrieS are
grown. He became one of the wealth
lest men in southern New Jersey, and
all his money was made through the
discovery of the efficacy of sand
mixed with the soil where cranberries
grow.
A cranberry marsh of the present
day is as handsome a plot of green
things growing" as the eye could we'll
rest upon, but the rearing of the
vines is attended with no end of toll
and care In its wild state the cram
berry vine had no obstructive or
destructive enemies. But since cult
walton took hold of it three persistent
and determined foes have come into
existence These are Il sharp edged,
stiff-leaved grass, an obtrusive and
hardy bullruSh, and destructive
10
After a marsh has been cleared
and sanded it is planted by taking
cuttings or slips from old vines and
inserting one end of them in the sand
on the peat. The soil is pushed tight
ly about the slips The vines soon
take root in the generous peat and
begin growing at once. They spread
rapidly over the ground, but they
have not been reaching out many
days before the grower finds them
surrounded and crowded by the hardy
and rapi three cornered hop, and it's
friend and cOadjutor, the bullrush
The grass and the PUSHES have to be
removed, root and branch, by means
of gouges and peculiar-lookinS hoes
and other implements. These pesuf-
erous weeds have to be constantly
watched and uprooted every week or
so for two seasons, so full does the
soil seem to be impregnated with
their germs, and so rapidly do they
grow. If neglected for a week they
would choke the life out of every
vine on the marsh. At the end of the
second year the cranberry vines
have obtained such Roadway that
they cover the ground all over the
bog like on vast velvety mat of emer-
aid, and have suppressed all further
hope of the grass and PUSHES to get
the better of them. 1t is the general
estimate that to foster cranberry
bog along to this stage costs the
grower 500 an acre; but by this time
the bog is worth 5000 an acre.
At the beginning of the third year
the vines begin to bossom and then
the festive web worm comes to the
front. The appearance of this curl
Gus pest is entirely unheralded. The
owner of a cranberry marsh may &C
able to see a sign of a web worm or
his vines and get up next morning t6
see the marsh looking as If 1t were
covered with miniature banks of fog
the tops of the vines being drawn
together so tightly that twine bount
around them could hardly bring then
any closer The little banks of TO:
are the webs of the dreaded worn
that have been Construed during tn
night and they are what pull tn
tops of the vines together When tn
grower sees that appalling sight h
ceases tocalculate on what his prom
will be on cranberries that year H
begins to figure, rather, on what b
is likely to lose. The vines begiL t
turn yellow in the course of a da
or two after the appearance of th
web worm on them, and the blossom
fall off. The worm often ruins DO
after bog. but sometimes confines it
ravages to one or two marshes /
the neighborhood.
In the early days Of cranberry GU
ture the growers were puzzled to fin
some way to protect the vines frol
the frost and severe weathr frol
November until May, and the onl
entirely successful plan was the or
now in universal use-the submer
ing of the vines under five or s.
feet of water from the LIST of Nover
Der. The water is drawn off abol
the middle of May, and the vim
come TO view as preen apd Trash .