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8       PROCEEDINGS OF THE WISCONSIN STATE
culture is a business and requires brains and the presence
of the owners. Some few have recognized this and made a
business of it, and we are now ten to twenty thousand
bushel men.
It has always been my firm belief that twenty acres of
bag taken care of like a garden is much better than fifty or
seventy-five acres onlv half or less taken care of. ThTet
a small five or ten acre bog and high culture beats a fifty acre
bog and no culture."
Prices for Picking.
Mass.-,'Seven cents per six quart measure was what I
paid for picking, three cents less than three years ago
which gives quite a little profit. Next year I contemplate
gathering my berries with a large scoop paying twenty-
five cents per hour which will reduce the cost of picking
materially. Where they have cost me one dollar and seven-
teen cents, they then wvill cost about fifty cents per barrel."
Varieties.
Massachusetts-(b 162) ' If I was to set out any more
bog it would be the Smith variety and no other, but the
Cape Cod Belle is a good berry but not so good a yielder as
the Smith. The Smith berry I keep until February and
March, when they bring me a very good price."
Massachusetts-(c 93) '- We have now (March 2nd).
about three hundred barrels, Howes, on hand which we are
working off leisurely at top prices. They keep like bullets.
and you can readily see the logic of sound late stock for
profit, by observing present facts."
Wild and Cultivated Bogs.
Wisconsin-(c 6) "I have got 6 to 8 different sorts.  I
have about six acres of wild marsh that is full of old logs
that you can sit on and pick berries as large as plums, and
they hold their size year after year, which is not so with
the cultivated as they get smaller after a few years."
Flooding.
Washington-id 4) "For a number of years I tried to
grow cranberries without winter flooding, the result was
not satisfactory, while in some spots they did well enough
they did poorly as a whole. The vine worm put in an
appearance in 1897 and compelled me to flood. I raised the
water about the last of November, keeping it on till about
the end of April. When the water was run off, the bog was
covered with a thick slime that when dried covered the
whole bog with a substance resembling wrapping paper
and about as thick. The following year I raised the water
about the same time and let it off about the same time as
the preceding year. In order to flood the highest part of
this bog the lowest vines are covered about five feet deep.