GROWING CRANDALL BLACKBERRIES 411 



would not prune as would a commercial grower, who can not have canes 

 running all over his fields. The amateur can pinch a main shoot and 

 send the laterals up the arms of a fan-shaped trellis if he likes and make 

 an object of rare garden beauty, and he can reduce the excess of bearing 

 wood by cutting away the parts of the laterals which run beyond his 

 arms or extra ones beyond those he can carry on his trellis. From the 

 point of view of the plant, he does the same thing that the commercial 

 grower does when he comes along with his scythe or sickle and cuts 

 away indiscriminately all the growth which goes beyond the space 

 where it is convenient for him to have the fruit. 



Seventh, do not be too particular about exact methods to imitate; 

 try rather to discern principles which may be served by many different 

 methods. 



Six Months Fruiting of Crandalls. One way in which the prin- 

 ciples just outlined may be applied to Crandall's Early which is our 

 leading blackberry, considering the State as a whole, is described by 

 Mr. R. E. Hodges as the practice of Mr. T. B. Cannon, of Los Angeles : 



Briars eighteen to twenty-four inches tall, having good root systems, are set 

 with a spade in finely pulverized soil as soon after they are dug as possible to 

 avoid wilting, to the same depth as they were before, four feet apart in rows 

 eight feet apart. The first year they require no pruning. The space between 

 rows is occupied by cabbage, beans, corn, potatoes, etc. 



In the second year three or four new canes come up. When these are four- 

 feet high, cut off six inches, and laterals start from the leaf axis. When these 

 are thirty inches long their end buds are cut off and they send out blossoms 

 which bear fruit that fall. These same laterals bear the main crop in their 

 second year, besides sending out new laterals near the base of the old ones 

 about the time the berries are well set. The new laterals bear the second crop, 

 which comes on about the time the first crop is gone. The third crop, borne 

 on the new canes, which have been cut back meanwhile to three and one-half 

 feet, blossom from August till freezing, and the berries ripen from Septem- 

 ber on. 



Mr. Cannon has followed this plan with satisfaction on two or three patches, 

 the largest of which is a half-acre set seven years ago in the young family 

 orchard. The first crop from this half-acre in 1913 was 180 crates. The second 

 and third crops usually together equal two-fifths of the first. The second is 

 about half of the third. Two years ago the third alone almost equaled the first. 

 And the berries sometimes sell at $2.80 per crate after October. 



Growing Crandalls in Hedge Rows. A method which aims at 

 economy in getting a main crop, without providing for succession, is 

 that of Mr. J. B. Wagner, of Pasadena. He uses no trellises, but leaves 

 the old canes in the hedge-row to support the new growth, in this way : 



On the day before berry-picking, all protruding new growth is cut back as 

 close as possible to the blanket of bearing canes which covers the mat of dead 

 ones. This removes all hindrance to picking. Do not leave stubs of new wood 

 above the bearing vines, because it raises the general level of bearing wood in 

 a year or two, so high that the pickers can scarcely reach over and up to the 

 center of the row. When picking is over, both sides of the hedge-row are 

 trimmed off clean till it is left only two feet wide. New growth soon leans out 

 over this and covers it, ready for a crop next year with the berries well outside 

 and handy for the pickers. Every six years he trims the whole hedge back to 

 a height of two feet and clears out all the cane over a year old, and this renews 

 the plantation. 



