The Canadian Horticulturist. 



265 



YIELDS AND PROFITS OF THE BLACKBERRY. 



HE year following the planting, there should be a sutificient 

 yield to pay for the cost of the plantation to that time. 

 The third year, the crop should be large, and from that time 

 on, the yield should be nearly uniform, when the seasons 

 are good. I do not know the limit to the profitable age of 

 blackberry plantations. It is certain that it should continue 

 to bear heavily for twenty years if it has good care, and I 

 am told by careful growers that a patch will last even longer than this. As the 

 plants are generally grown, however, they cannot be expected to hold out this 

 long, for the land becomes hard and foul, and the plants full of dead and 

 diseased wood. 



Blackberries are capable of yielding 200 bushels per acre, year by year, 

 unless very unfavorable seasons intervene. This station once made an inquiry 

 amongst fifty growers in various parts of the country as to the average yield of 

 blackberries. The lowest return was 40 bushels, the highest over 300 bushels, 

 and the average of the whole fifty was 98 bushels per acre. The prices in this 

 State range from seven to fifteen cents a quart. J. M. Mersereau, of Cayuga, 

 one of our best blackberry growers, recently said to me : " Let me choose the 

 soil, and I will guarantee to clear $200 per acre on blackberries." In our own 

 experience at Ithaca, blackberries have sold the most readily of any of the bush 

 fruits, at prices ranging from eight to fifteen cents per quart. Granville, Cowing, 

 Muncie, Indiana, a most successful grower of this fruit, makes me the following 

 statements respecting the profits of it : " The blackberry is probably the most 

 profitable of the small fruits. Owing to its firmness it can be kept much longer 

 in good condition than the strawberry or raspberry, and often brings better 

 prices. The best varieties are enormously productive, their cultivation com- 

 paratively easy, and a well kept plantation of them should last a life time." 

 Whilst all tnese figures and statements are tempting, it must, nevertheless, be 

 said that the blackberry, like all other fruits, yields the golden harvest only to 

 those who work for it, and who think whilst they work. — ^^Cornell B. 99. 



Chestnuts. — The American chestnut has the sweetest kernels, but are 

 smaller, and the trees must be some fifteen or more years from the seed before 

 they bear. The European, or Spanish chestnut, has nuts nearly double the size 

 of the American, but are tamer in flavor. But the seed will bear at about ten 

 years from the seed. The dwarf Chinquepin Chestnut will often bear the second 

 "or third year from seed, but the nuts are so small, that they are not in general 

 use. The Japan chestnut, is a comparative dwarf, though a stronger grower than 

 the American Chinquepin, — but the nuts are as large as the European chestnut, 

 with about the same taste. Like the Chinquepin, they bear early. But all the 

 kinds bear early when grafted from bearing trees. — Meehans' Monthly. 



