100 ANNUAL EEPORT. 



worth remembering that he is a successful fruit grower out in Mc- 

 Leod County. 



As to raspberries and blackberries, I am thoroughly convinced that 

 covering with good clean soil is the only certain protection for them, 

 and I know that that can be successfully and profitably done; that we 

 can afford to cover the same as grape vines, and make a certainty of 

 every crop. I am glad to say that that has been practised. Another 

 thing: In setting out apple trees there should be very deep stirring 

 of the soil before the trees are set. If it is where you can plow, run 

 three or four furrows, and back-furrow on that, until you get two or 

 three feet of loose soil; then set the tree. If you set the tree without 

 plowing, dig a hole three or four feet across, stirring the ground thor- 

 oughly, then mulch. We have to fight drought in this country, and 

 it is in this way that our trees can be made to stand our winter's cold 

 and the summer's drought. I would ask Mr. Chandler to state how 

 he covers his blackberries ? 



Mr. Chandler. I turn them over, and cover them with fine, loose 

 dirt, not more than three or four inches in depth. 



Prof. Porter. I will give the method I have been practicing for the 

 last thirty years for covering blackberries, which I find very effectual, 

 and it is applicable to grapes, raspberries ^nd blackberries. In the 

 first place, I want the ground clean. I get that by careful tillage in 

 the proper season of the year; but I don't want any cultivation in my 

 orchard, except the merest surface cultivation. I want it done early 

 in the season, and then check the late growth by pinching back. I 

 have just enough surface cultivation after that to stimulate the late 

 fall's growth, and the first frost kills the leaf. Then I endeavor to 

 bind my vines all in one direction. The direction, of course your rows 

 will determine. I make a small mound of earth against the vine, 

 making a shoulder, as it were, over which the vines are .bent, so as to 

 prevent the breaking of the canes, and then I cover with the soil. It 

 is not a very great depth of covering that is desired; two or three 

 inches is as good as two or three feet. It is simply to protect the 

 canes, not from the frost altogether, but from the sun and wind. I 

 have been engaged in fruit growing about thirty-five j^ears, and have 

 found that it paid in Pennsylvania and Delaware to cover my vines, as 

 it pays in Minnesota. While it was not necessary to cover, with many 

 varieties, to prevent winter-killing, the increased productiveness, the 

 certainty of a finer crop more than compensated for the labor per- 

 formed. Of course, there are some varieties that cannot be grown, 



