410 CALIFORNIA FRUITS I HOW TO GROW THEM 



prolificness and profitability of a patch grown by W. M. Gray, of Gar- 

 dena, Los Angeles county. Its qualities are vigorous growth, hardiness, 

 regular and profuse yield of large, early berries. 



Pruning and Training Trailing Berries. With reference to the 

 handling of trailing blackberries and the blackberry-raspberry hybrids 

 which are continually becoming more popular, it may be said that there 

 is no one best way. There are several good ways, according to the 

 desires and convenience of the growers, and this is the reason why 

 there is an apparent conflict in which all contestants may be right, each 

 from his own point of view. The varieties are sufficiently alike to be 

 discussed together. What seem to us the essentials in pruning them 

 are these : 



First, they all bear on canes which grow the previous year, and the 

 fruit comes on laterals which break from them. In this mild climate 

 there is continuous break of laterals which may cover quite a long 

 period and the same wood may seem to be bearing twice. This second 

 bearing is of so little account that the general rule to remove old wood 

 after its main fruiting is a good one. 



Second, the wood which grows this year will therefore bear next 

 year, and will send out bearing laterals sufficiently with a number of 

 treatments. The new cane may be pinched at any time during growth 

 and it will then send wood laterals (not fruit laterals) at once and 

 each of these laterals will have the same character that the main shoot 

 would have had if it had not been pinched ; that is, it will send out fruit- 

 ing laterals at the same date the following season. 



Third, it does not matter whether you make the new growth bunchy 

 by laterals following pinching or whether you let it run out and cut off 

 part of it at the end of the growing season or whether you shorten it 

 in and at the same time cut away closely all the laterals which it may 

 have made on its own account when it was running out. In all cases 

 there will be dormant buds enough to give fruiting shoots on whatever 

 part of the cane you reserve. 



Fourth, the way you prune, then, depends upon serving your own 

 convenience in the training of these shoots up to a post, along on a 

 wire or along on a ridge on the ground whatever suits you best to 

 keep the fruit out of the dirt, and to promote such cultivation as is desir- 

 able, etc., will be accepted by the plant as not interfering with its 

 starting fruiting shoots from whatever dormant buds you have allowed 

 it to retain on the wood which it matured the previous season. 



Fifth, there is in addition the application of the principle that good 

 large fruit is the product of a plant which is not carrying too much 

 bearing wood ; that is, is not endeavoring to perfect too much fruit at 

 the same time. For this reason, as well as for convenience, it is desir- 

 able not to allow a plant to retain all the cane it grows, but to shorten 

 it or to remove the laterals or part of them or to shorten the laterals or 

 in any other way to require the plant to direct its energy to the better 

 development of fewer fruits. 



Sixth, growers are, of course, influenced by different considerations. 

 Amateur growers delighting in running vines on fences or trellises 



