318 ANNUAL REPORT 



about their growing. Eurly in the spring is the best time for set- 

 ting, before young shoots start. If you wish to. plant potatoes or beans 

 among them; it wont hurt them as bad as a crop of weeds. 



When the canes have reached a height of two feet the first season, 

 or three and one half feet afterwards check the growth of the main 

 stems by pinching back, or if they get the start of you, cut them 

 back to the desired height. This will cause the formation of lateral 

 branches and give much better results than it will to allow a tall and 

 unchecked growth. 



The best way 1 have ever seen to do this is to walk on each side of 

 the row with a long sharp butcher knife, strike quickly right and left 

 at every sprout that shows its head above or outside your ideal row. 

 This is a much faster as well as better way than the old style of pinch- 

 ing back with the thumb and finger; and it enables you to keep them 

 as even and handsome as a well turned hedge row 



As soon as picking is over remove all the old wood by cutting close 

 to the ground, and at the same time thin if necessary to what you de- 

 sire for your next season's crop, four or five good strong canes in a hill 

 or one in six inches if grown in a row is better than twice as many. 

 After the old wood is removed one good thorough cultivation of the 

 ground is all that is necessasy, as we wish to check the growth in 

 time to harden the wood rather than induce a late and tender fall 

 growth. 



If this part has been well done, the ground made smooth and mel- 

 low, and the canes properly thinned, it will greatly facilitate the next 

 operation, which is the most important of all to the successful culture 

 of blackberries and dewberries in Minnesota. 



While the strawberry and raspberry are geueraly hardy, and will 

 sometimes return good for evil, rewarding their owners for their 

 neglect, the blackberry is far more tender, and naturally grows as an 

 undergrowth among the trees somewhat protected from the influence 

 of our prairie zephers. So while some hardy varieties with small ber- 

 ries, and more like the type of their wild ancestors will stand our cli- 

 mate fairly in favorable locations, we must not expect our better va- 

 rieties to do so, and our ouly safety lies in regarding them as tender, 

 and giving them all the winter protection possible. I would rather 

 risk the tenderest blackberry with a good covering of dirt than the 

 hardiest without it. 



Pinch back between two and three feet high to increase the growth 

 of lateral branches, and slop cultivation in season to harden the wood 

 before freezing weather. In spring prune laterals to one foot in 



