DISCUSSION 123 



black ones and they will do the same thing, — they should not be 

 picked with the dew on the plant. 



Now there are only a few varieties of blackberries I would 

 recommend. ^ 



Snyder and the Mercereau. The Snyder, as you all know, is only 

 a small ber.^y, but it is a hardy berry. I believe it is hardier than 

 the Mercereau, although my Mercereau have stood very well. I would 

 put the rows about 8 feet apart, and then you can plant them just as 

 close as you care to in a row. That does not make much difference. 

 After tne first year you should allow them to grow pretty thick in a 

 row about two feet wide. This leaves six feet to cultivate, and be 

 sure you cultivate it well, allowing neither woeds or canes to come 

 r.p in the cultivated part. Never allow canes in the row to grow more 

 than three feet high, and if the new canes do get taller, cut them out 

 or back in July to three feet, and you will seldom fail to have a good 

 crop of fine berries. The blackberry will stand a deeper planting and 

 should be planted deeper than the raspberry. They are a little easier 

 to plant than the raspberry but you must get good plants. You take 

 a sucker plant with a good long root to it, and be sure to cut off all 

 the cane, just leaving enough to show. Take the sucker plant if it 

 has quite a long root to it, and there is enough of the cane left above 

 the ground, so that the moisture goes off from that cane. The best 

 way to do is to plant it, so that it does not leave very much above the 

 ground for evaporation, ^ou can best realize how much exaporation 

 there is to a plant by going over to the auditorium and examining that 

 stalk of corn. 



I have the Blowers too. I received that from Crawford just after 

 he got it. I have had it several years now, but I do not think 

 as much of it as I do of the Mercereau or. the Snyder, either one 

 Although Mr. Crawford wrote me afterwards that when he went to 

 get the original plants he got them mixed a little bit. It might be 

 possible that I have a mixture. I do not knoAv for sure whether cv 

 not I got the real Blowers or whether I got some of the other plants 

 he had mixed up with them. 



Q. What did you get from your Snyder's this year? 



A. Nothing much this year. — 14 years without a failure and the 

 entire bed dead, root and branch. 



A Member: In response to what you said about the blackberries, 

 we have a patch of five or six acres, and they are just in full bearing 

 now. Mercereau did so much better than anything else this year, I 

 think it is worthy of special mention. I figure we averaged seven or 

 eight times as much as we got from the Snyder. The Snyder bore well 

 but dried up on the bushes, for want of ability to mature its fruit. 

 The dry weather was responsible for that. The Blowers and the Mer- 

 cereau, standing side by side I see very little difference in them, except 

 the Mercereau out yielded everything else. 



