SMALL FRUITS. 3T5 
canes we ever had were grown from those branches nipped by 
the frost. This year I have experimented in that way and 
have nipped the most of them low down, and 1 have never had 
so fine a growth of canes in my life. 
Mr. Ludlow: Do you take out the surplus canes? 
Mr. Thayer: Yes, of all kinds. I remove them just as soon 
asl can get at them. I take a pruning knife and cut out all 
the surplus canes. 
Mr. Cutts: What we call the suckers? 
Mr. Thayer: Yes, I treat them as weeds, and hoe very 
thoroughly. 
Mr. Sampson: How long do you advise keeping a black- 
berry patch? 
Mr. Thayer: Well, I think twenty or thirty years would be 
sufficiently long. In regard to the time a blackberry planta- 
tion will last—when I was down visiting my friend, Mr. Hamil- 
ton, two years ago, he took me down to a certain plantation 
and said, ‘‘this is the twentieth crop that has grown on that 
patch of blackberries.” 
A member: What kind of blackberries do you grow? 
Mr. Thayer: The Briton for the main crop with a few Sny- 
ders to start with. I aim to grow varieties that will make a 
‘continual season from my first early strawberries to my last 
late blackberries, for I calculate to keep the customers that I 
have well supplied with fruit from the opening to the closing 
of the season. 
Vice-President Wedge: Is the Snyder productive on sandy, 
light soil? 
Mr. Thayer: Well, with good culture, it produces with me 
from one hundred to one hundred and twenty-five bushels per 
acre, while the Briton has produced—well, my own average 
has been about 150 bushels to the acre. JI have some acres that 
will produce about 200 bushels. 
A Member: Have you ever tried the Lawton or the Wilson 
or the,so-called Erie? 
Mr. Thayer: I tried the Lawton some years ago, when I was 
in the berry business for fun, but they did not do well with me. 
Mr. Harris: Truman M. Smith, one of our best members, 
adopted a system twenty five years ago by which he was able 
to get much more per box for his fruit than any of his competi- 
tors. His idea was to sell nothing but first-class fruit, and in 
every box he put a little card, and it said on that card, ‘‘Grown 
and picked by Truman M. Smith,” giving his address, and that 
