SMALL FRUITS. 335 



Mr. B. C. Yancey, Edina Mills : I feel very much interested 

 in blackberry culture; I have about fourteen acres in blackber- 

 ries myself, and I would like to ask these gentlemen a question 

 or two. I have found out by experimenting on my plants that 

 the Ancient Briton has done the best with me, although I have 

 some Snyders that yield very abundantly. The Ancient Bri- 

 ton is very prolific on my clayey soil. I found out that my best 

 and earliest berries came from the spots where the sun did not 

 strike at all, I believe. In keeping with this idea, in covering 

 my bushes I bend them as far as possible to the north, and 

 when I uncover them in the spring I do not make them quit 

 straight, I let them be a little angling, believing that the new 

 canes coming up on the south side will act as a protection. I 

 have found that those berries grown in the shade are larger 

 and better, being really finer fruit and ripening fully as early. 

 I have come to the conclusion, after trying both ways, that I 

 get the best crop of berries by letting the berries come down 

 to the ground and mulching heavily. Cornstalks make a very 

 good mulch, and so does moist hay. Let the berries come down 

 to the mulching or just a little higher than the mulching. I 

 find they yield better if you let them have their own way about 

 this and protect them by this mulching, than they do if you 

 wire them up. My experience has been that the Snyders do 

 reasonably well, but with me the Ancient Briton is the best, de- 

 cidedly. 



Mr. A. H. Brackett: I wish Mr. Elliot would give us his ex- 

 perience in that line. He advised my going to see some black- 

 berries that were treated somewhat in that fashion. 



Mr. Wyman Elliot: I suppose Mr, Brackett refers to Mr. 

 O. H. Modlin of Excelsior. He has two rows of black- 

 berries, about twelve rods long, and his method of hand- 

 ling them is similar to Mr. Yancey's, the last speaker. He 

 mulches his berries very heavily, six to eight inches deep, and 

 when he takes them up in the spring, he just lifts them above 

 the mulching and lets them lay right on the mulching. That 

 gives a chance for the young canes to come up and serve as a 

 sort of shade and protection for the fruit. He certainly gets 

 the finest crop of berries of any man that I know of. The year 

 before last he raised on those two rows $73 worth of fruit. I 

 do not know what he did last year, but I was there this sum- 

 mer and examined them, and they were very heavily loaded. 

 I examined several plantations of blackberries, and I did not 

 see any that gave greater promise than they did. 



