564 THE RASPBERRY. 



Varieties. These are increasing every year. The following include 

 the best worth cultivating: The Red Antwerp, Yellow Antwerp, Fastolf, 

 Fill Basket, Carter's Prolific, Cornwall Large Yellow. The autumn or 

 double-bearing varieties : The October Red and Yellow, Autumn Black, 

 Large Orange, and McLaren's Prolific. 



Propagation, Soil, and other points of Culture. The only mode of 

 propagation is by suckers, except by seeds, which is only resorted to 

 when new varieties are wanted. Seedlings carefully treated will pro- 

 duce fruit the second year. The suckers are separated in autumn, 

 either by taking up the whole plant and dividing it, or by slipping 

 them off from the sides and roots of the main stock. They may be 

 planted at once where they are finally to remain in a compartment by 

 themselves, in rows from north to south, four feet apart every way. 

 They will grow in any good garden soil, and if on the lower part of a 

 slope, towards the north, east, or west, the soil will be kept moderately 

 moist by its position, and the situation will not be so much exposed to 

 light and heat as if it. sloped to the south. The raspberry grows 

 naturally in soft, peaty, or vegetable soil, shaded by woods, and always 

 moist ; but it is most prolific in fruit, and the fruit is better flavoured, 

 in the more substantial and drier soil, and opener situation, of the 

 garden. In making a plantation, one or three or more suckers are 

 allowed to each stool, and planted six inches apart. The plants will 

 produce fruit the first year, but if this fruit can be dispensed with, the 

 suckers for the succeeding year will be greatly strengthened by cutting 

 the stems of the newly-planted plants down to within six inches of 

 the ground. The plantation being established, the future treatment 

 consists in going over the stools every year early in May, and selecting 

 six or seven of the strongest suckers from each stool for next year's 

 bearing wood, and destroying all the rest, unless they are wanted for a 

 new plantation. In autumn, as soon as the fruit is gathered, the stems 

 which have borne it should be cut down to the ground to give light 

 and air to the suckers ; but as these are sometimes liable to be injured 

 by frost, they should not be pruned till the following March. They 

 may then be shortened to two-thirds or three-fourths of their length, 

 by cutting off the weak wood at the extremities of the shoots. If 

 large fruit is wanted, but few stems (canes) should be left to each 

 stool, and these should be tied singly to stakes placed round the stool 

 in a circle, at about a foot distance from it, so that the canes when tied 

 to the stakes shall be bent outwards ; which position at once facilitates 

 the development of the buds all along the canes, exposes the fruit more 

 freely to the sun and air, and allows room for the suckers to rise up- 

 right from the stool without shading the fruit-bearing canes. Some- 

 times, instead of a circle of stakes round each plant, a line of rails or 

 of iron wire, or long rods with the bark on, is placed between every 

 alternate two rows of raspberries, supported at about three feet from 

 the ground by stakes ; and to these rails, wires, or rods, the canes 

 from the adjoining plants are bent over and fastened by ties of matting 

 or willow- twigs. In this way every alternate space between the rows 

 is covered by the bearing canes which are bent over it, and the other 



