STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 07 



is with a great struggle that it reaches five feet of single stock. 

 And it is probably spotted with fungus scabs, if so, better cut it 

 down to the ground in the fall and let your plant rest one year. 

 Hut if the plant is over three years in the row plow up and begin 

 again. 



I^ut if the smaller branches are killed during the winter and 

 tlit'V are cut off, the reserve l)uds on the main branches will produce 

 a j)artial crop of very fine fruit, and the plant will be left in an 

 average healthful condition. 



I need hardly add that T do not consider the second method 

 necessary to reach the full nia.xinium yield of the plant, and that I 

 consider it a hurtful method, the most dangerous when most success- 

 ful. I will add that any main stock without sufficient vigor to reach 

 a growth of five or six feet is injured by resorting to the first method, 

 but it should be allowed to reach its growth and then cut back to a 

 heighth of about three feet above the crown; and also that cutting 

 off terminal buds in August or September is almost always hurtful, 

 as it starts terminal buds from the auxiliaries forming branches when 

 there is not time to mature them properly for fruit bearing. 



For the preparation of this paper my observation was somewhat 

 confined to the Ohio variety, a rank, rapid grower. The princi]>les 

 involved I consider applicable to all varieties of raspberries and black- 

 berries. The cane varieties, as Turner, Cuthbert, etc., multiply so 

 ra]>idly that summer pruning is hardly advisable after the first year, 

 certainly not after the second year of fruiting. 



The Snyder Blackberry will, on good soil, admit of the first 

 method for several years, but if the plant should become feeble 

 through any cause, it is better not to disturb the terminal bud during 

 the growing season. After a block of blackberries has fruited three 

 or four years it can be greatly renewed by omitting summer i)runing 

 and growing branchless stocks. These stocks, if closely set in the 

 row, will not average over four and a half or five feet in height. If 

 rut back to three feet the following spring, they will average ten 

 buds to the stock. These l>uds will come nearer meeting their 

 promise of fruit than buds on branches, because of a short and direct 

 sap line and thickness of stock, furnishing protection from severe 

 winters and dry summers. In addition to these two reasons I will 

 add that careful ol)servation has found the statement to be an estab- 

 lished fact. 



<'utting back matured wood decreases the nuiuber of fruit buds 

 and thus relieves the plant of a burden. Summer pruning, nijiping 

 or cutting of branches, or removing the growing terminal buds iii 

 any way, always increases branches and l)uds, and so adds a burden 

 to the plant. Summer pruning should l)e ]iracticed intelligently 

 and with care, or not at all. 



The time for cutting back the matured wood, is said to be any 

 time after the fall of the leaf, and before the opening of the })ud 



