STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 67 



Mr. Elliot. The objection to corn stalks is they are a little too 

 coarse. Where a covering is used for the plants that are exposed 

 the best thing is coarse marsh hay. It is very fortunate for us 

 that we have plenty of lakes all over this country, and most of us 

 can get an abundance of marsh hay. 



Mr. Whipple. Has there anything been found better than 

 marsh hay for raspberries ! 



Mr. Smith. I think Mr. Whipple has found something better. 

 The two societies have come together at this session and what the 

 Amher Cane Association has left the horticulturalists may take 

 for their mulching. [Laughter.] Mr. Whipple uses the sorghum 

 bagasse among his raspberries, and I noticed that last season he 

 was selling the berries about a month after the rest of his neigh- 

 bors got through, and they were the best in the market at that. 



Mr. Whipijle. I have a patch of raspberries that I have fruited 

 for nine years, and during the past seven years I have done 

 scarcely anything to them except to mulch them a little with this 

 bagasse. 



President Smith. I won't attempt to say how many quarts of 

 berries I raised on a single acre; but I had a party who picked 

 one hundred and four quarts in a day from the patch, so you may 

 judge they were pretty thick. And they were mulched with saw 

 dust. 



Mr. Whipple. A good deal depends on how full one fills their 

 baskets wdien they are picking. 



Mr. Tuttle. Mr. President, I have tried various things for 

 covering strawberries; we used to use marsh hay, but a few years 

 ago I had a plantation of strawberries and I had a heavy crop of 

 corn and so heavy that I did not cut it all up, so after I had taken 

 out the corn I took the stalks to cover my strawberries. I grew 

 that year and had one-third of an acre of the Crescent; I grew 

 one hundred bushels from that third of an acre. I found that 

 mulching — I only mulched once; I spread the stalks out evenly 

 and I let them remain and didn't attempt to take the stalks off. 

 You will find that the plants will crawl up through them. The 

 first that I mulched I took off a part of the stalks; but I was 

 away for a few" days and when I came back to take off the balance 

 I found the vines were growing uj) through the stalks and I left 

 them. The result was the berries were very much better where 

 the stalks were left on the vines, and ever since that I have used 

 corn stalks for mulching. It makes a good protection against 

 the severe freezes, and it keeps your berries back in the spring. 



