THE EASPBERRY FIELD THE FIRST SEASON. I45 



size, which should be about two inches wide, eight inches long 

 and seven inches deep. The man that sets the plants takes a half- 

 bushel baled basket with some wet moss in the bottom, filling it 

 from the barrow. He places two plants in each hole, spreading 

 the roots lengthwise and pressing the earth firmly with his foot 

 on each side of the plants, always dragging a little loose dirt 

 around the plant to prevent rapid evaporation and baking of the 

 surface. When the field is planted, I go over it at once with the 

 Planet Jr. twelve-tooth cultivator to keep the soil from drying 

 out. I continue cultivating about every ten days during the en- 

 tire season, or as long as the weeds continue to grow. If the 

 fall is exceptionally dry, I continue the cultivating till the ground 

 "begins to freeze. 



Mr. Wm. Lyons : I would like to hear that paper discussed 

 a little. He plants the same way I do, and it is an excellent way 

 in some soils. I have had as high as fourteen acres of raspberries 

 about the same distance apart as mentioned in the paper, mark- 

 ed with the corn marker and planted with the spade. I had a 

 piece of land, containing a heavy clay soil with black loam on 

 top, which I had prepared in the fall, and as raspberries want to 

 "be planted as early as possible, I planted them as early as I could 

 the next spring. The ground was perhaps a little too wet, and I 

 "know it was too heavy. Where the spade worked back and forth 

 in the soil it left a polished surface on both sides. I set two 

 plants in each hill. They never did well, and I could not ac- 

 count for it. One day I dug down to the roots and I found that 

 roots had come out on either side of where the spade went down, 

 but no roots had started over that polished surface which had 

 been made by the spade. That patch was a failure. In sandy 

 soil that plan works very well. I adopted the plan of marking 

 the ground as stated in the paper, then I took a one-shovel plow 

 and marked the land one way, and the marks running the other 

 way it was easy to set the plants. One man and I took the plants 

 out of the basket as we went along and set them in the bottom 

 of the furrow and put a little earth in, and as soon as the plants 

 were set in a furrow we followed along with the cultivator and 

 threw some dirt in the furrow, and in that way we had excellent 

 success! 



The President: How deep did you plant? 



Mr. Lyons : We got the roots down about four inches. 



Mr. Wright : It is pretty hard for every one to catch on and 

 make the hole just right with the spade. I always make a hole 

 ten inches deep and get it wide enough so that when the plant is 

 put in and the earth is tramped around it the soil will crumble 

 in. I do not have sandy soil, I have black loam. 



Mr. D. V. Plants: I prepare my ground the same as de- 

 tailed in the paper, the only difference being that I have the rows 

 two inches wider. When the ground is laid off I take the potato 



