70 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



it, the pinching back of the new growth in the summer has a 

 tendency to force laterals and in that way you get your lateral 

 cane. Otherwise you would have the straight cane, to be 

 headed back the following spring — which would naturally win- 

 ter-kill a little and have to be cut back the following spring. 

 My experience has been this, that whenever you pinch back a 

 cane in the summer you force out this lateral growth, large 

 lateral growth, which does not become ripened sufficiently, so 

 but that we get a tremendous amount of winter injury. Ninety 

 per cent of my canes producing laterals are ruined by winter 

 injury every year, or have been for the last five years. So I 

 practice the straight cane system, and in this way I have had 

 very little trouble with winter injury of the red raspberry. I 

 grow only the Cuthbert variety. 



Has any other grower present had any experience along this 

 line? If you have, please volunteer to give your experience. 



Question : We have about an acre and a half of red rasp- 

 berries and purple ones, which we put between the plum trees— 

 can't cultivate them very much, and so we grow those in the 

 line of the fruit trees — large trees. Last winter the rasp- 

 berries winter-killed very badly. The red ones died back almost 

 completely ; injured them quite a good deal. Now, what I want 

 to find out is whether it would do to prune those in the fall, or 

 wait till spring? Which would be the best way? 



Mr. McAllister: Mr. President, I would like to ask the 

 gentleman a question. XMiat is your system of fertilizing? 



Answer : Barn manure. 



Mr. McAllister: What time do you put it on? 



Answer : We put it on in the spring, generally, though this 

 year we started a new idea which we got up ourselves. We 

 took about one-third part of our raspberry patch and put a 

 fence of hen wire around it, and put our hens in there. 



Mr. Conant: In reply to what this gentleman has said, 

 with my experience, I would say this: Quite a number of 

 small fruit growers have come to me this present summer and 

 fall and asked me, "What success did you have with your rasp- 

 berries this year?" My reply was that it was the only normal 

 crop I produced on the farm. And inquiring of them what 

 success they had had, in nearly every case winter injuries — 

 winter-killing. My next question was, "What is your method 



