70 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



broke a singfle cane this year, the first time I ever did it with so much 

 success, and all because we put the canes down the way they nat- 

 urally lean. It cost me this year $7.50 per acre to cover my raspber- 

 ries that way. The red raspberries I found we could lay down one 

 way, but I became satisfied it was impracticable with black rasp- 

 berries, and much better to lay them the way they would naturally 

 go, soine this way and some the other way, and a single hill would 

 sometimes lean two, three or fourdifferent ways. This was the only 

 way I could put down my Schaffer's Colossal, by putting each par- 

 ticular cane in its own direction. I have got thein all down and 

 have got them covered. I do not know of any work in the garden 

 that pays so well for the ainount of labor we put in as that work of 

 covering raspberries. I have tried the plan of leaving one hill 

 stand up straight and laying another hill down and covering it> 

 and I believe if a man can get back a profit of twenty-five per cent, 

 on the money invested in a raspberry plantation without covering, 

 it is not exaggeration to say he can get back one hundred p^ cent, 

 by covering. It pays; it is the most profitable work you put on 

 your raspberry patch, putting them down for the winter. 



While I am on this subject of covering, I want to say there is 

 another thing I learned last year. I watched Mr. Coe very carefully 

 in what he said, and he prescribed exactly the customary routine, 

 just what we read in the horticultural reports and papers, and just 

 what has been said year after year, and that is, after the ground 

 freezes hard enough so it will hold up a wagon, then mulch j^our 

 strawberries. My strawberries were injured last year after it began 

 to freeze and before it was frozen hard enough, before it was safe to 

 put on the mulch for the winter; they were injured more at that time 

 than at any time during the season. That was a year ago this fall. 

 I thought I learned something again. We had a few beans at the 

 end of the strawberry patch; we threshed them out with poles and 

 winnowed them with the wind, and the wind blew the chafif over the 

 strawberries, and those were the best strawberries we had on the 

 place this year. Then later I went into the woods with a big wagon 

 box and raked up leaves and filled the wagon box, and then scattered 

 them thinly over the strawberries, not enough to cover the plants 

 out of sight, but just enough so there were a few leaves scattered all 

 along the row; and, finally, about two weeks ago when I got read}^ 

 to put hay over them, I had my strawberrj^ plants in the finest con 

 dition I ever saw them at that time of the year. The plants were all 

 sound and good. Doubtless many of j^ou have not taken the trouble 

 to examine your strawberry plants when you got ready to mulch 

 them. It freezes enough to seriously injure your plants before the 

 ground will hold up a wagon. There were verj^ few plants that 

 were not injured by freezing. I have found, in taking up strawberry 

 plants at that season of the year, that there were a great many 

 injured in the roots by that alternate freezing and thawing. We can 

 prevent that by putting on a light mulching of cut straw, but I find 

 it easier to get leaves. There were seven rows in my strawberry 

 patch 120 feet long, and it took two men and a team four hours to 

 gather leaves enough to cover that in good shape, so that I regard 

 the expense of putting on this thin covering of leaves as about $6.(X) 



