512 Agricultural Experiment Station, Ithaca, N. Y. 



is necessary. If a patch becomes foul with thistles and other weeds,, 

 the best procedure is to mow it off, plow it up thoroughly and crop 

 it with corn for a season. Suckers will come up in the corn along 

 the old rows, and the following year the plantation will be com- 

 pletely renewed. 



Stable manure is the most popular fertilizer for blackberries. In 

 general, it may be said that if the tillage is good, nitrogen wiU 

 rarely be needed on good lands. Potash and phosphoric acid as 

 advised for orchards (Bulletin 72) may, no doubt, be applied to 

 advantage. 



Yields and jprojits. — The year following the planting, there 

 should be a sufficient yield to pay for the cost of the plantation to 

 that time. The third year, the crop should be large, and from 

 that time on, the yields should be nearly uniform, when the sea- 

 sons are good. I do not know the limit to the profitable age of a 

 blackberry plantation. It is certain that it should continue to 

 bear heavily for twenty years, if it has good care, and 1 am told 

 by careful growers that a patch will last even longer than this. 

 As the plants are generally grown, however, they can not be ex- 

 pected to hold out this long, for the land becomes hard and foul, 

 and the plants full of dead and diseased wood. 



Blackberries are capable of yielding 200 Inishels per acre, year by 

 year, unless very unfavorable seasons intervene. This station once 

 made an inquiry ^amongst fifty growers in various parts of the 

 country as to the average yield of blackberries. The lowest return 

 was 40 bushels, and the highest over 300 bushels, and the average of 

 the whole fifty was 98 bushels per acre. The prices in this State 

 range from seven to fifteen cents a quart. J. M. Mersereau, of 

 Cayuga, one of our best blackberry growers, recently said to me: 

 " Let me choose the soil, and I will guarantee to clear over $200 per 

 acre on blackberries." In our own experience at Ithaca, black- 

 berries have sold the most readily of any of the bush fruits, at prices 

 ranging from eight to fifteen cents a quart. Granville Cowing, 

 Muncie, Indiana, a most successful grower of this fruit, makes me 

 the following statements respecting the profits of it : " The black- 

 berry is probably the most profitable of the small fruits. Owing to 

 its firmness it can be kept much longer in good condition than the 



*" Raspberries aud blackberries," by Fred W. Card, Bulletin 57. (Now out of 

 print.) 



