398 



The Canadian Horticulturist. 



SMALL FRUITS IN FALL. 



UNDREDS of acres of land are devoted to small fruits, 

 which are annually cropped with no return to the soil of 

 the elements taken from it. Strong competition has 

 forced strawberry-growers to go to some expense for fer- 

 tilizers in order to produce large berries, but the rasp- 

 berries and blackberries receive but little manure or fer- 

 tilizers. In the fruit-growing sections dairying is given 

 but little attention ; hence manure is not plentiful, reli- 

 ance being placed upon commercial fertilizers. There 

 is only one point regarding raspberries and blackberries, 

 that is the large production of canes every year. This 

 growth of new canes takes from the soil a much larger 

 proportion of plant food than do the berries, and as 

 fields may bear successive crops for ten or more years, the importance of an 

 annual application of fertilizer cannot be too strongly urged. The early spring 

 Is usually the period of the year when fertilizers are applied, but there is a heavy 

 growth of canes until late in the fall. In fact, the plants get ready during the 

 summer and fall for next year's crop of berries. 



WAen to Apply Fertilizers. — The spring application of fertilizers will always 

 give excellent results, but they should be very soluble in order that the canes, 

 which grow very rapidly, may be plentifully supplied, but after the crop is picked 

 an application of potash and finely ground bone should then be used. Nitro- 

 gen should not be applied very Hberally in the fall, as it is liable to be carried 

 away by the excessive rains during the winter, owing to its ready solubility ; but 

 mineral matter will assist in the production of larger and healthier canes and 

 aid them in resisting the attacks of insects and diseases. It is claimed that 

 plants possess a " storage capacity " — that is, the ability to hold within them- 

 selves the substances from which the fruit is produced the next year — which 

 claim is not fully accepted, however, but it is well known that when plants have 

 have been cultivated and liberally supplied with plant food in the summer and 

 fall they respond to the good treatment, and yield more than a sufficiency of fruit 

 to compensate for the expense incurred in pushing the plants forward and 

 enriching the land. 



Cultivation Necessary. — Outside of an effort to kill off the largest seeds 

 between the rows, the canes of blackberries and raspberries receive but little 

 cultivation, and in the rows among the plants weeds and grass contend for 

 supremacy. The field is usually given up until spring, except to cut out the 

 old canes during the winter, and the land is compelled to grow two crops — 

 canes and weeds — and the canes are kept down, being unable to resist drought 



