186 Wisconsin State Horticultural Society. 



planting near the canes you want to fruit, or cultivate later than 

 the first of August. 



Blackberry ground should be marked seven or eight feet one 

 way with a small plow, the other way three and one-half or four 

 feet with a marker. Set the roots from four to six inches deep, and 

 when the new canes come up, cut the old canes off, if inclined to 

 grow. Cultivate shallow, until about the first of August. If 

 cultivated later than this, it will incite a late growth of wood, 

 which will not mature. The first year pinch the tips off from the 

 new canes when from one to two feet high ; after the first year, 

 from two to three feet. In the fall or spring, cut out old canes, 

 and cut the branches back within twelve to twenty inches of the 

 main cane. If kept in hills, do not allow over four canes to a 

 hill. If in hedges, only one or two in a place. Mulch heavy 

 after the first or second year. Keep the suckers down with a hoe 

 or by shallow cultivation. Do not dig roots from a plantation, if 

 frait is wanted. 



It is not uncommon for fruit-growers to succeed in growing a 

 fine crop of fruit, and fail to realize a profit on it, because of the 

 haphazard way they gather and market it. That this may be 

 done without loss, a good supply of packages should be made up 

 ready for use before the berries are ripe. The ground should be 

 divided, so as to pick half of the fruit every day, except Satur- 

 days, when all that is ripe should be gathered, in order to get 

 over Sunday without having overripe berries for Monday. Take 

 cases filled with empty boxes into the field, also hand-racks made 

 so that about eight-quart boxes can be carried in each. Give 

 each picker an empty box, or a hand-rack filled with boxes, and 

 a row, if strawberries; if raspberries or blackberries, place one 

 on each side of the row, with instructions to pick strawberries by 

 pinching off the stem of the berry about one-third of an inch 

 from the hull, using great care not to loosen the hull, or bruise 

 the berry, and in gathering all kinds of berries that they must 

 not put overripe or too green berries in the box. 



As soon as the pickers are at work, take two hand racks filled 

 with empty boxes, and tickets that cannot be duplicated by the 

 pickers, and when they get their boxes full take the full ones and 



