Small Fruits. 383 



Answered by H. E. Van Deman. 



There is no defininte date at which it is best to head back the young 

 canes of blackberries and raspberries; but the state of growth should 

 determine the time to do the work. When the young growing canes are 

 about three feet high, about three or four inches of the tip of each should 

 be clipped off. It will be necessary to go over the rows several times, 

 at intervals of about a week, for the canes will keep growing, and reach 

 the proper height in about a month. The checking of the upward 

 growth will cause numerous laterals, which are just what are needed. 

 They should not be headed back until early the next spring. 



Summer pruning grape vines is rarely beneficial. If they were 

 properly pruned previously, when in the dormant stage, they will need 

 very little or no pruning until the next fall, winter or spring. The plan 

 that some viticulturists follow, of heading back grape shoots in the 

 growing season, has been found by many of our best grape growers to be 

 a detriment, if done severely, and of little service in any degree. One 

 of the first things I learned to do on the big fruit farm where I spent 

 several years learning practical pomology, was how to head back the 

 bearing shoots when about two joints beyond the last bunch of grape 

 flowers, and then later, to pinch back the laterals, and if we had time, 

 the sub-laterals likewise. But such work is now generally considered 

 useless in a practical way. The old idea was to throw the growth into 

 the clusters of fruit, and so it does to some extent. But there is often 

 too much intervention with nature's process of development, and the 

 grapes are not bettered by it. It is, also, costly to do it carefully and 

 thoroughly, and this is an item worth considering, in commercial vine- 

 yarding; but the amateur may count it a pleasant pastime, as it really is 

 to him, if not busy with other work. All that I would now advise to do 

 in the way of summer pruning grape Aanes, after over thirty years' expe- 

 rience and observation, is to rub or break out needless shoots early in the 

 growing season, especially those along the main stem of the vine, or near 

 the ground, and where barren shoots come out near the bearing ones, 

 and to head back a few of the very rampant branches, after more than 

 half their growth is made. It should be done more as a matter of con- 

 venience than with an expectation of bettering the fruitage. 



The Pruning Book, by L. H. Bailey, is the best as well as the newest 

 guide to correct pruning. Price $1.50, postpaid, of the K. ]^.-Y. 



