3838 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
them superb. At that time there were on one two, and on the other 
three thrifty young shoots, “canes from the root,” about two anda 
half feet in height. They must be saved, and I stuck a stake by 
them and tied them to the stake. I did not look at them again till, 
‘accidentally, on election day, in 1880, I found that where the vines 
stood, close to the fence, the ground was rich, and in front of them 
I had planted some small prune trees and about 1,000 hedge haw- 
thorns, imported from Holstein, Germany. With these hawthorns, 
mixed in with the roots, a large number of roots of what they call 
duenengrass had found ingress in my garden. The grass was tall, 
and those raspberries, the young canes, had bent over among the 
grass. and there I found on the tips of the twigs ripe and green ber- 
ries, buds and blossoms. I have since then taken good care of them 
and tried to propagate them. 
“The yield I have been asked for at different times, and, in 1887, I 
undertook to keep account of a small patch which had on the west 
a board fence, east a grape arbor, north a woodshed and south my 
poultry yard and stable. The piece so circumscribed was 79x27 feet, 
or 2,133 square feet, or 73?3 square rods. A strict account of all 
berries picked off of that patch showed 378 quarts. The rows were 
three feet ten inches, or say four feet, apart and very unhandy to 
pick, and though the above would give 8,000 quarts to the acre you 
cannot counton that. I think by keeping them clean 5,000 quarts to 
the acre is an average yield. I have them now six feet apart as to 
the rows and three feet in rows. They need no covering in winter. 
“T have a patch of upward of two acres on sandy ground, and they 
do well. I had some on my farm, three miles below town, on sand, 
and they did well. The garden by my house is very rich, black soil; 
there the vines grow larger and the trellis must be higher. Our 
farmers raise them on clay subsoil ground. 
“The Excelsior Everbearing raspberry does not spread. The 
roots never grow to the surface. Neither do the tips take root, even 
when covered not one out of 100 will sprout. New plants are ob- 
tained by digging up the plant and dividing the root, as is done 
with gooseberries and currants. The plants begin to bear the latter 
part of June and continue to bear till frost comes, thus giving more 
than three times as large a crop as any other variety. Why they 
bear solong? The new siioots which come from the roots in spring 
bear berries in the fall of the same year. The old wood of the previ- 
ous year’s growth bears a fair crop during July and August, and 
the new wood of the present year’s growth begins to bear in August 
and bears till frost kills vegetation. Dry weather generally means 
a failure of the raspberry crop; not so with the Excelsior. Even in 
a severe drouth its crop is not affected. It bears continuously from 
June till late in the fall. Itis enabled to do this because it has long 
roots which grow down deep into the ground. The plants are 
hardy, requiring no covering or protection of any kind, even in the 
severest winter. The berry is large and of a dark, red color, and has 
a delicious flavor. 
“While I have not a good home market for the early berries, my 
main aim is plants, and for that purpose I cut in the fall or during 
