DEAR FRANK: How surprised you will be to learn that I am now a country boy. We left Boston early last spring, and came out here to go into the business of cranberry raising. It seemed very strange at first to travel along country roads, or through woods and fields, instead of upon the cement walks of our city streets, but we all think the country delightful. A cranberry farm is a marsh or a bog, so you will see that the vines need a great deal of water. There are both wild and cultivated bogs. Those that are cultivated are provided with a system of ditches, so that they can be flooded from time to time. It is a good deal like irrigation in Southern California, I suppose. We flood the bogs to prevent the berries from freezing, as well as to furnish the vines with water. I will tell you more about that by and by. Father wanted a larger bog than the one he first bought, so, soon after we came, he got another small piece of marsh land which joins it on the west, and started vines on it. You know that willows, rosebushes, grapevines, and many other plants will grow from _cuttings_. It is the same with cranberry vines. The lower end of each cutting is pressed into the soil, and it soon begins to grow. They are set in rows about fourteen inches apart. One of our neighbors, who was starting a bog at the same time, cut the vines into pieces an inch or two long, and scattered them over the ground. He then harrowed them in. The vines multiply just as strawberry plants do, by putting out _runners_. They tell us that our new bog will produce a crop in three years. Do you have to wait that long for a crop of oranges? By the middle of June our bog was in full blossom. The flowers are quite small and their color is a little like that of the flesh. I read an interesting thing about them the other day. It seems that the berries used to be called "craneberries," because people thought that the blossoms, just before they opened fully, "resembled the neck, head, and bill of a crane." By dropping the _e_, we got the present name. [Illustration: FIG. 45.--A Cranberry Bog. Showing the Young Vines.] During our harvest time, which lasted from the middle of September to the last of October, we were very busy. We did not commence to go to school until the berries were picked. You see, frost may occur and spoil the crop, so that everybody works as fast as possible until the harvest is over. Father had about twenty pickers some of the time, besides our own family. [Illustration: FIG. 46.--Cranberry Pickers at Work. Notice how the Bog is divided into Rows by Means of Cords.] When we were ready to begin picking, father took some twine and stretched it back and forth across the bog, fastening it to small stakes. This divided the field into rows. Each picker was given a row, and he was not allowed to change until it was finished.