402 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the best way to grow handsome and superior strawberries is to plant a new 

 bed every year or two. And decidedly the best and easiest way to do this 

 planting is to do it as soon as picking is over. Have the ground prepared and 

 marked off with a line, sticking in a bit of twig or weed-stem about as long as 

 a lead pencil to mark the place for the hills (this for neat and exact garden 

 culture). Then on the first cloudy day, in July — don't wait for August — take 

 a basin or shallow kettle and a pair of scissors to the bearing bed and runners 

 enough will be found that have escaped nipping. Scissor off these and retain 

 the joint bearing an incipient leaf and incipient roots. Leave attached an 

 inch or so of the runner and cut off its extension beyond the joint. Throw 

 these into the water as prepared, and when a number are collected take them 

 to the new bed, where if the ground is light and mellow, they can be 

 planted as fast as they can be picked up, by merely pushing the stump of run- 

 ner horizontally into the soil and closing this compactly against the young 

 issuing roots. Such cuttings grow more readily than plants with roots of some 

 length, because the roots are not in the least harmed, and because there 

 is so little leaf surface yet exposed. Still it is best to plant in damp, cloudy 

 weather, and during the first week, or until the young roots have gone down to 

 constant moisture, water must be applied at the least sign of flagging. If 

 they begin to wilt under the beams of the summer sun, pour water around 

 them no matter what time of day it is. The gain in economy of work and in 

 strength of plants for good next June's produce, by this mode, is very great. 



RASPBERRIES. 



How and When to Plant. — Concerning when and how to plant rasp- 

 berries Chas. A. Green says in Rural New Yorker : The best time is after 

 the young germ, which is tough and not liable to break, has pushed above 

 the soil. While young plants are full of vitality they are easily destroyed by 

 the hot sun or dry wind, and should not be exposed a moment in planting. 

 Exposure is frequently the cause of failures. People often drop them in the 

 row in advance of the planters, where their vitality is sapped before they are 

 covered in the ground. Another cause of failure is planting too deep. I 

 have known them to lie buried three or four inches deep in compact soil for 

 several months without growing a particle, and to die ultimately. In heavy 

 soil they should be planted not over two inches deep. In sandy soil they 

 can be planted deeper without so much danger of smothering. In subse- 

 quent cultivation, especially for first few months, care should be taken to 

 cultivate very shallow about them, for if the earth is loosened about the 

 roots the wind will reach them and destroy the plants. 



Deep Planting. — Mr. Ohmer of Dayton, Ohio, who is authority on rasp- 

 berry culture, says that to make his black raspberries self-supporting, or not 

 needing stakes, he plants them at least four inches deep, instead of only an 

 inch or two, and then they never blow over. The first year they are pinched 

 back to eight or ten inches ; the second, and subsequently, the tips of the 

 growing shoots are pinched back when twenty inches to two feet high. The 

 next spring the numerous laterals are sheared back from one to two feet 

 long. A horse does the cultivating. He has tried both methods with red 



