PROCEEDINGS OP THE WINTER MEETING. 103 



raent of roots on any plant. Strawberries, set four feet apart, cover 

 the ground with a complete network of roots before the next spring, 

 and the poorest roots of the strawberry, the weakest roots of the whole 

 lot, are those nearest the plant. Kaspberries and blackberries are, 

 I think, the fruits mentioned, and they feed all over the ground, and 

 in j)utting it near the plant it needs considerable working to get it 

 where the plant can use it. We frequently see where the farmer has 

 piled his manure next the roots of the tree, and yet it is a well-known 

 fact that in an old orchard the roots cover every inch of the ground. 

 Still they will pile the manure around the body 'of the tree, where 

 the roots are old. They are reaching out for new ground just as much 

 as they can and as far out as they can. As to the question as to the 

 amount of bone and ashes, I will say, in my own practice I like to use 

 about 500 pounds of bone and 100 bushels of ashes per acre, for any 

 fruit, and I don't know but if I had the bone, or could spare the money, 

 but I would put in a thousand pounds. I have had nothing but good 

 results from bone and ashes on any fruit, but the matter of fertilizing 

 should be better understood. If you have but little, put it all over the 

 ground. The same with barnvard manure. 



*5 



Is there a good xointer variety of sweet apple for marJcet, and profitable, other 

 than Talman Siveetf 



Prof. Slayton: I don't know anything that will keep longer than 

 Talman Sweet, but there is the winter Sweet Swaar. 



Are dewberries a profitable market berry, and if so, how are they trained and 

 Ttianaged when in full bearing? 



Mr. Gebhart: I have had a little experience in that. I had a dozen 

 or fifteen plants. I kept them trimmed back to four feet, and they 

 did not prove a success, and I reset them, and cut back the ends a little, 

 and they have borne wonderful crops the last two years. 



Q. Did you train them up for fruiting purposes? A. No, not on 

 trellises. 



Q. Were they not sandy? A, No, the vines were quite thick. They 

 were Lucretias. 



Mr. Rork: I have grown them on a small scale, and there are three 

 nice i)atches of them near me. Mr. Slocum, near Grand Rapids, has a 

 fine patch of them, and makes money out of them in the home market. 

 He gets a good price. He is growing them in preference to strawberries. 

 He cuts them back into hills, two feet, lets them droop a little, throws 

 short straw on them pretty freely, and lets them lie there until spring. 

 Another man uses nearly the same treatment. He mulches a little more 

 heavily and presses down the vines before he puts it on, and in the spring 

 he shakes up the vines with a pitchfork. It is (juite a craze in our 

 locality. They are being badly winter-killed with us, however, unless 

 pretty well covered. They are a fine, large berr^' and come in early, but 

 the people in market won't buy them if they can get anything else. This 

 is the Lucretia. 



Q. They are generally reported as a sweet berry? 



Mr. : Some that I had were not sweet, and they haven't much 



of a blackberry flavor with us, but they are fine and large. 



