Winter Meeting. 297" 



of fertility possible. We lived on the place, which contains a small frac- 

 tion less than one acre, for a few years, and bought several wagon loads 

 of stable manure each year and had the manure carefully spread and 

 stirred into the soil, so at the time the berries were set, which was in the 

 spring season, the ground was well prepared for their reception. We 

 were compelled by the shape of plat to set the rows running east and 

 west. The raspberries were set in two parallel rows, six feet apart and four 

 feet apart in the row. The soil was in fine condition to work and only 

 two of the plants died. One single row of Irish potatoes was planted 

 midway between the rows, which gave plenty of room to allow a five- 

 shoveled cultivator, drawn by a single horse, to pass, thus allowing the 

 cultivation to be done by horse power, and after each cultivation the entire 

 plat was hoed with a hand hoe, with special attention to the raspberry 

 plants. The cultivation and hoeing was done as soon as the soil would 

 crumble into a fine mass as the cultivator would pass along after each 

 rain. And no attention was paid to the number of times cultivated up to 

 about July 20, when cultivation ceased. The cultivation of the soil about 

 growing plants may be compared to the act of mastication of the food by 

 the human being. Mankind and all living and creeping things which 

 Noah collected by pairs into his ark masticate, divide and suddivide the 

 morsel of food until it becomes soft and fine and saturated with the 

 saliva, which prepares the food for the further process of digestion. Cul- 

 tivation divides and subdivides the soil, breaking up the little capillaries 

 or open channels which the last rain had caused to admit the water, and, 

 of course, still stand open, allowing the escape of moisture by evapora- 

 tion. Cultivation makes a dust mulch, so to speak, which favors the re- 

 tention of moisture about the roots of the cultivated plants. 



When the young raspberry shoots are 30 inches high the bud is 

 pinched out to stop the upright growth of the shoots and favors the 

 growth of laterals or side branches, which are allowed to grow at will, 

 and usually the tips touch the ground and take root to form new slips. 

 The laterals are pruned ofif with the pruning shears in the spring to 

 about 8 to 10 inches in length ; the brush is burned. Each lateral is 

 closely inspected and the small ones are cut the shortest, to thin the fruit 

 according to the apparent vitality of the individual lateral. 



In the spring of 1900 we set just one hundred raspberries of the 

 Kansas variety, as above stated, in two parallel rows, and 1901 was the 

 dry season, and we thought that the berry business would be a complete 

 failure, but to our surprise, they made a fair, good growth, and in 1902 

 v.-e picked and sold 275 boxes at 20 cents per box off of the 100 briars, 

 and 100 boxes at 15 cents per box, and the same briars (of course, we 

 took out all the old wood each spring) has been full each successive 



