STATE HOETICULTURAL SOCIETY. 311 



be most likely to carry off the water. If it is on a sidehill and the 

 slope is to the south, we should have the rows run north and south, 

 so that when the plants are covered it will make a ridge, and the water 

 which is apt to collect between the rows will flow through them. 

 Water is detrimental to the plants. We cover with dirt. 



Mr. Pearce. Do you cover the vine entirely up ? 



Mr. Hamilton. Yes, sir. 



Mr. Pearce. Is it necessary to do it ? 



Mr. Hamilton. In our locality, some claim it is not; but when we 

 have no snow, I do not consider it safe not to fully cover. It is not 

 the cold weather that kills the cane so much as the freezing and thaw- 

 ing, and we think we have too good a thing to run any risk, when it 

 only costs from six to eight dollars an acre to insure their coming 

 through the winter in excellent condition. 



Mr. Pearce. Did you ever try putting only sufficient dirt on the 

 canes to hold them down ? 



Mr. Hamilton. Only along the side of fences where snow gathered 

 in. It isn't safe to leave them uncovered except where snow is likely 

 to collect. 



A Member. You said you mulched, what time ? 



Mr. Hamilton. We draw it in the winter, and leave it in heaps 

 there; after we have raised our plants and hoed them out, we put this 

 straw or mulch around them and then do our cultivating afterwards. 



A Member. What slope do you consider the best adapted for black- 

 berries ? 



Mr. Hamilton. I consider a south slope the best. I should prefer 

 a level piece, but not what you might call a low piece. 



Mr. Underwood. Will you allow me to add a word in connection 

 with what you said of covering. A gentleman from Dakota who is 

 growing some berries, was at my place this fall and telling me how he 

 covered his vines, and I practiced it a little. He has a man go along 

 with mittens on, who straddles the row and lays the plants down while 

 another man follows and puts on some earth to hold the canes down; 

 when he has that done, he hitches a horse to a plow and throws up a 

 furrow, covering the canes. He covered some grape vines in the same 

 way. 



Mr Hamilton. That it is an easy and quick way of doing it, and 

 you will get through the first winter, likely, all right, but it is hard 

 governing the plow, and you will break and loosen a quantity of roots; 

 then it is necessary to keep one man in there the rest of the season to 



