GROWING HEAVY CROPS OF FRUIT. 195 



pressed with it. I have g^ot three or four varieties g^rown from tips; 

 they all lived, but they have not made good strong healthy plants, 

 but tips rooted in the fall and then set out a year later made much 

 better hills; they never made good strong hills from tips only. Put- 

 ting two plants in a hill, as Mr. Elliot suggests, is a good plan; I 

 like that plan first rate. Instead of planting equal distances apart I 

 have doubled them up for a part of the distance in the row, plant- 

 ing between the rows half way down one row, and then continue in 

 the same way in the next row, and wherever a plant had failed in 

 the row from the first planting I would lift a tip with the spade from 

 the short row into the regular row and in that way make a good 

 hill. I am satisfied that the black raspberrj?- grown one year from 

 the tip and then set out will give the best satisfaction, so far as the 

 living of the plants is concerned, but I doubt whether such plants 

 will make as good hills as to get the tips where they are to stay. I 

 am satisfied it injures the black raspberry to take it up and shake the 

 dirt ofif the roots after the first year. If there is any way by which 

 we can handle tips and select then so as to get tips that will grow, 

 we ought to know it. I have planted black raspberry tips on good 

 soil, given them good cultivation, and they have had just as good 

 care as anything could have, and still they died. 



Mr. Wedge: Didn't you plant them too deep? 



Mr. Smith: No, sir. They were all planted at the same depth; I 

 understand the danger of getting them too deep. I think one reason 

 why they do not grow is that they heat and mould sooner than 

 strawberry plants. They grow at a low temperature, and the roots 

 heat and mould and turn black, and they will not grow at all. I 

 have taken up from my own garden and planted them within an 

 hour, and had them all die, and I could not tell why. I planted 

 some varieties last spring, and I was very careful with them, but 

 they died, and I cannot tell whj'^ I lost them. 



Mr. M. Pearce: This is a subject of considerable interest to my- 

 self. I have never tried the blacks, but I have tried the reds very 

 thoroughly. My attention was first called to that six or seven years 

 ago. I had a surplus of raspberry plants, and I set them out thick, 

 only four feet apart. I cultivated them well during the summer, 

 and in the fall I told a neighbor of whom I thought a good deal and 

 who wanted some plants, that he could have all he wanted to set 

 out. He came and dug them up; I helped him; he dug up every 

 other row. He set them out and they did finely. He got some others 

 at the same time and set them out. He often told me he never had 

 anything do as well as those raspberries. The canes are larger and 

 better in every way, and since then I have been experimenting along 

 that line. Why it is so I cannot say, but I know it makes a wonder- 

 ful improvement. I have never tried the black raspberry. I know 

 it is a great improvement in the red, but I believe it will pay to set 

 out transplanted plants. 



ROOT PRUNING. 



Mr. Wyman Elliot: Mr. Pearce, I want to ask yoxi a question. Do 

 you root prune them any? 



