Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/460

 456 CRAMER CRANBERRY most beautiful odes, and his principal works relate to that poet (Klopstock : Er und uber ihn, 5 vols., Hamburg, 1779-'92 ; Klopstoclc, in Fragmenten aus Brief en ton Tellow an Elisa, 2 vols., 1777). He also published a French- German dictionary, and various works relating to his observations and experiences in Paris, besides translations from English and French into German, and from German into French. CRAMER, John Baptist, a musical artist and composer, born at Mannheim, Baden, Feb. 24, 1771, died in London, April 16, 1858, where he passed most of his life in great esteem as a composer and as a performer and teacher on the piano. His exercises and studies for the instrument are used in all parts of Europe and in America. His compositions are considered models of simple construction, beauty, and grace. CRAMOISY, Sebastien, a French printer, born in Paris in 1585, died in January, 1669. He was the first director of the royal printing office established at the Louvre in 1640. Many of the specimens of his work are very fine. He was one of the society of 100 associates found- ed by Cardinal Richelieu for colonizing Can- ada, and printed many of the Jesuit relations on that colony, and Pere du Creux's Latin history of it. His business was continued by his family till the close of the 18th century. CRANACH, or Kranach, Lucas, a German paint- er and engraver, born in Kranach, near Bam- berg, in 1472, died in Weimar, Oct. 16, 1553. His family name was Sunder, but according to the custom of his time he took the name of his birthplace. He was court painter to three electors of Saxony Frederick the Wise, John the Steadfast, and John Frederick the Magnanimous. He accompanied the first to the Holy Land in 1493, and shared the impris- onment to which the last was subjected after the battle of Muhlberg in 1547. He was bur- gomaster of Wittenberg, and enjoyed the friend- ship of Luther, Melanchthon, and the other great reformers, whom he frequently intro- duced into his pictures. The school of Saxony, of which he was the head, is parallel to that t)f Albert Dtirer, with whom he had much in common, although the earnestness and gran- deur of the latter are replaced in Cranach by a graceful and almost childlike simplicity. Like Dilrer, however, he was swayed by the fantas- tic element then so prevalent in German art. His works are numerous in Germany, particu- larly in Saxony, and some good specimens are to be found in Florence. One of the most celebrated is an altarpiece at Weimar, repre- senting in the middle the crucified Saviour, on one side of whom stand John the Baptist, the artist, and Luther, and on the other is the Re- deemer victorious over death and the devil. On the wings are portraits of the elector and his family. The picture has remarkable power in parts, and the portrait of Luther is singu- larly grand. In the wings of another altar- piece in the city church at Wittenberg, repre- senting the last supper, he has introduced Luther, Melanchthon, and Bugenhagen, per- forming various religious duties. In mytho- logical subjects he was not less successful, and his nude female figures have sometimes much grace and beauty of form. He also excelled in portraits, and has left accurate likenesses of some of the most notable men of the time. As an engraver he was inferior to Durer, but his woodcuts are highly esteemed. His son, LUCAS the younger, who was also a burgomaster of Wittenberg, and died there in 1586, formed his style on that of his father and of Dilrer, and attained great excellence as a painter. CRANBERRY, the small, red, acid fruit of the vaccinium macrocarpon and other shrubs of the same genus, distinguished by slender creep- ing stems, small evergreen leaves whitened beneath, and erect pedicles, terminated by a pale rose-colored nodding flower, with a four- parted corolla. The cranberry shrub grows best in lowlands, where the decay of organic matter furnishes the different organic acids. The related V. oxycoccus is found wild in Cranberry. many parts of North and South America, in England and Ireland, in the marshy grounds of central and northern Europe, and on the wastes of Siberia. The American cranberry is larger than the English, and of richer flavor. The three principal varieties recognized in the markets are the cherry, bugle, and bell cran- berries. The best of the cherry variety are very dark-colored. The requisites for success- ful cranberry culture are : a soil of muck or peat that can be drained for 12 or 18 inches below the surface ; a supply of water sufficient to allow the meadow to be flooded at will ; and an abundance of pure sand. The attempts to cultivate the cranberry upon ordinary soil, in a large way, have not been profitable. Local- ities suitable for cranberry meadows are to be found in most northern states, especially at Cape Cod, Mass., and in Ocean, Atlantic, and Burlington counties, N". J. These counties are estimated to supply more than one half of all the berries sold. The surface of the meadow is pared, the sods and all stumps and roots being removed, and then covered with sand to