GROWING HEAV.Y CROPS OF FRUIT. 191 



The atrawberries alluded to should be grown in matted rows, 

 kept perfectly clean and covered in Noveinber with straw. 



The second season as soon as danger of heav}' frost is over, the 

 canes are lifted to their natural position and fastened there by pack- 

 ing- earth about their base, and about the time of their first cultiva- 

 tion give each hill a shovelful of wood ashes again. Keep the 

 cultivator in motion. Three or four new canes should be allowed 

 to grow in each hill; destroy the rest and continue the destruction 

 as fast as they appear. No pruning or pinching back is recom- 

 mended for the second year, but keep the cultivator in motion. 



As soon as the strawberries have fruited, plow them up and level 

 the soil with a pulverizer. This space may be planted with turnips, 

 and a heavy crop grown without injury to the canes, but after the 

 second year allow nothing to grow on the ground except the berry 

 bushes, keeping the open space between the rows perfectly clean by 

 the combined use of the cultivator and pulverizer. 



Each season as soon as the berries are picked, all the old canes 

 should be cut out, gathered together, loaded on the wagon and be 

 hauled away and burned. 



With red raspberries, if not kept in hills as has been indicated, 

 not more than seventeen new canes should be allowed to grow to the 

 rod in the row. The suckers that will appear in countless thousands 

 should be shaved off without mercy as fastasthey show their heads. 

 The man that neglects this part of the program will soon go out 

 of the business in disgust. There is no way that I know of to keep 

 them down but to keep the horse hoes in motion, going over the 

 plantation as often as I have before stated, from early spring- until 

 it freezes up in the autumn. 



Each spring when the canes are raised and placed in position, all 

 that have been iuj ured should be removed and the tops of the others 

 clipped back within two or three inches of the natural bend. 



The constant cultivation during the entire season necessary to 

 keep down suckers, grass and weeds will not injure your canes in 

 the least by causing them to make a late autumn growth, as has been 

 stated by some writers. The great thing to remember is shallow 

 cultivation, as a rule, never to exceed two inches. And in all this 

 cultivation, manage to keep the ground as nearly level as possible- 



Under no consideration, neglect to give the plants their annual 

 rations of unleached wood ashes, which we throw right onto the 

 crowns of the plants. 



Rotted manure ma}'- be freely scattered between the rows, but 

 place nothing there to interfere with cultivation. The best mulch 

 that I know of for a berry plantation is the dust blanket, and while 

 you must cultivate very shallow, if your rows are far enough apart 

 the entire portion can be dug up much deeper. 



Do not make the mistake of trying to grow heavy crops of fruit 

 and also plants for future setting on the same ground at the same 

 time. For propagating purposes, the blackberry rows are dug with 

 the plow or, what is better, a tree digger when they have completed 

 the second season's growth, and the earth shaken from the roots, 

 which are then cut up in pieces three or four inches long, tied in 

 small bunches and packed in the cellar, after the manner of root- 



