346 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL, SOCIETY. 



I will say that on my own gi'ounds last spring I had a lot of 

 Brandywines that I wanted to make a nice showing of next 

 year, and I pinched them off at sixteen inches and kept them 

 there. 



Mr. Thayer : We people from Wisconsin want to get all the 

 information we can without it costing us anything. [Laughter.] 

 We want to know which is the best way to grow raspberries, 

 and if it is best for us to leave them until they get to be two 

 and a half or three feet high, we want to know it, because we 

 have been pinching them lower down. I pinched my planta- 

 tion at twelve to fifteen inches, and many of them at ten inches. 



President Underwood : Do you get a very vigorous growth 

 on your ground ? 



Mr. Thayer : Yes, I get a very vigorous growth, and the 

 more vigorous the growth, the more necessity for low pinch- 

 ing. In that way, canes are not so liable to be injured by the 

 wind. If you get a bush clear up here, two and a half or three 

 feet high, there is a large to pleft to it, and, in a strong wind, 

 it is very apt to be broken. I would pinch every blackcap I 

 have at twelve inches high, if I could. The branches are then 

 lower down and are better adapted for laying down in the 

 winter, besides being less liable to damage in the wind. That 

 has been my experience, and our experience in Wisconsin. 



Mr. A H. Brackett : Do you pinch the laterals off ? 



Mr. Thayer : No, sir, we are not in the habit of pinching 

 the laterals off. Of course, in the fall of the year, when the 

 laterals have made their growth, or in the spring — we then 

 cut them back very severely. We cut them about at the bend, 

 and make a sort of stubbed bush of them. 



Mr. Plants : Some three or four years ago, I ruined a patch 

 of raspberries by not pinching. The laterals came out and 

 winter-killed the tip, which has a sort of stem in the end. As 

 the laterals were frozen, there was nothing left there to break 

 the wind, and, consequently, the next growth coming up was 

 broken off by the heavy winds, and I came very near losing two 

 crops, instead of one, by not pinching. My advice would be 

 — short pruning. 



Mr. C. L. Smith : I would like to inquire of Mr. Plants and 

 Mr. Thayer if they would sanction the substitution of the 

 words " one and two" instead of "two and three," as the 

 height at which they are to be pinched ? I mean one and two 

 feet instead of two and a half to three feet, as I have stated. 



Mr. Plants : I should say from sixteen to twenty inches. 



