210 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



our soil and climate, and I think you would find this a safe casket for 

 some of your eggs. The black walnut, hickory nut, and chestnut of our 

 boyhood days are going fast, and what are the people to do but to look to 

 California for cultivated nuts? When we were boys we bought a bushel 

 of hickory nuts for four bits and even a quarter. We stored them away in 

 bags and barrels and ate them evenings with our apples which we got for 

 the picking. Those days of peace and plenty and no money have passed. 

 We earn and spend, for what our appetite craves, a dollar where we used 

 to earn and spend a shilling. There is scarcely any of our fruits that will 

 not find a remunerative market, and we need not worry about over-produc- 

 tion. You can't plant fast enough for the increasing demand. 



SMALL FRUITS. 



The blackberry, raspberry, gooseberry, strawberry, and, if we may class 

 them as small fruits, table grapes, are all profitable fruits to grow and de- 

 serve separate attention. I must not prolong this article, and will only 

 speak particularly of the blackberry and raspberry. Small fruits should 

 be encouraged in neighborhoods, because they are needed to make up the 

 varieties required by the canners, and besides they are very profitable. 



THE BLACKBERRY AND RASPBERRY. 



Correct pruning is as necessary in the successful growth of the black- 

 berry as in fruit trees. If you let your bush run up six or eight feet, and 

 head the stock there, your bush has but a half formation; the long, main 

 stock is left unshaded; your fruit is up in the air and sun, and will burn 

 and not mature. What you want is a stocky bush, not too high and not 

 too low; if too high, the direct rays of the sun will burn your fruit, and if 

 too low, the reflected rays will burn it. At four feet above the ground 

 pinch off the tips. The bush will then throw out laterals. Pinch these 

 off at about a foot. These again will throw out laterals which should be 

 pinched off at a foot's length. You will thus get a compact, stocky bush, 

 whose foliage will protect the berries, and whose branches will not break, 

 and you can easily cultivate your patch. The first year you get no fruit; 

 the second you prune as above, and now prepare for a rich, luscious har- 

 vest. Irrigation is essential, and you should never allow the ground to dry 

 out after each irrigation you should cultivate. The ground should be thor- 

 oughly manured each year. Your soil should be a rich, sandy loam, the 

 more moist the better. Of course, without manure you will have fine ber- 

 ries, if the soil is good, but the best results are obtained only with manure. 

 Plant six feet apart each way, and only one root in a place, or one thousand 

 two hundred and ten plants to the acre. Stake each separately, if you can, 

 and if not, set a post at each end of the rows, and brace them well, and 

 stretch a wire from post to post, about four or five feet above ground, on 

 which to tie the runners, and support it at intervals with stakes. 



Raspberries are managed much the same, only they are planted more in 

 • a place, and more closely together one way, and are headed back at 

 eighteen inches, instead of four feet. 



The product of an acre of these two berries would astonish any one not 

 familiar with their prolificness. 



Wilson's Early and Kittatinny blackberries, and Cuthbert (red) rasp- 

 berries, are recommended. 



