148 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



with little "sleigh-runner" pieces nailed 

 underneath, 3 feet apart — each runner 16 or 

 18 inches long- — the whole pulled by a couple 

 of 10 foot handle pieces united by a cross 

 piece at the outer end and well braced to 

 the long cross piece will make five marks a 

 yard apart ; and by letting the outside 

 runner go in the last mark every trip across 

 the patch will mark out four more rows. 

 But the long cross piece must be thin enough 

 to bend readily, or else when you pass over 

 some slight elevation or hollow in the land 

 you will find one or more of the " runners" 

 riding in the air instead of marking. Now 

 when your patch has all been marked for 

 the rows, it is well to go over it again cross- 

 wise and mark where each plant is to stand 

 in the row. If you have lots of plants or 

 plenty of money to buy them, you can secure 

 an immense crop by setting the plants every 

 foot or fifteen inches, and you can increase 

 increase the crop still further by setting out 

 the rows in pairs only a foot apart with 

 paths two feet wide between each couple of 

 rows and the next. By keeping the runners 

 off and the ground free from weeds and 

 then "mulching" — that is covering ground 

 with straw or waste hay, or, 

 better still, with a two inch coat- 

 ing of half rotted manure in 

 September, the loose strawy 

 parts to be drawn up over the 

 plants in November, when pretty 

 well washed out by the late fall 

 rains — you will have ensured the 

 largest crop of the finest berries, 

 so far as one season's human 

 efforts can do it with the means 

 at command. 



But a quarter acre patch set 

 out by this method would require 

 about seven thousand plants, 

 which, if to be purchased, would 

 entail far too much expense for 

 most people. I propose to show 

 how it can be done with only 



about one sixth of that number — and well 

 done — and the time spent in planting 

 will also be far less, but it will take more 

 time later on. To this end I advise setting 

 the plants over three feet apart in the row. 

 Take the same 3 ft. marker and run it across 

 the rows. Do not run it " square " across, 

 but diagonally at an angle of about sixty 

 degrees. Then when a plant is set at every 

 point where the marks cross, the plants 

 should stand slightly over forty inches apart, 

 and each plant will be exactly opposite the 

 middle of the space between the nearest two 

 plants in the next row, and so on ; that is, 

 every plant will be just about 40 inches from 

 the nearest plant in every direction. 



This will make it possible to save nearly 

 all hoeing for nearly half the summer by 

 running the cultivator across the rows as 

 well as lengthwise. I recommend the com- 

 mon hoe as about the best tool for planting 

 by this method. Let it be one with a large 

 blade. The common happy-go-lucky style 

 of spade-planting will not do when the 

 plants are so far apart. You want every 

 plant to live, and with fair treatment they 

 may. Strike with the side of your hoe in 



Fig. 2285. Export Pi-'Ars— The Kf.iki-::k. 

 (Page 141.) 



