20 



stock which one can scarcely afford to overlook. Here also 

 comes in a chance to do some fine selecting, some might say, 

 pedigree work. If your plants are grown vigorously and 

 carefully in nursery row, and not allowed to fruit, you are 

 bound to get the finest quality of plants obtainable. 



Next let us consider insects and diseases. When talking 

 with raspberry groAvers from various sections of the country, 

 one hears a story something like this: "Yes, we grew red 

 raspberries. They were very profitable, a very attractive 

 fruit to work with, but all of a sudden some disease seemed 

 to have overtaken our plantation, and it was necessary for 

 us to quit the business." I know from personal experience 

 but little about many of those difficulties. I understand that 

 root gall has been one of the serious troubles in many sections, 

 fJso that in some of the western New York fruit sections 

 there is a disease, anthracnose, especially on the Black Cap 

 and Purple Canes and have caused those growers to renew 

 their plantations very rapidly. Some have held it in check 

 at least by spraying. Here again one sees reasons for hav- 

 ing a home grown stock of clean healthy plants growing in 

 our own nurser}'. You may isolate a little nursery and keep 

 the stock clean and have a finer available stock for replant- 

 ing. In case of a threatened spread of disease, it would pay 

 to practice short rotations and perhaps scatter plantation to 

 ether parts of the farm. 



Selection of a suitable soil is fundamental. I distinctly 

 remember my early experiences in picking wild raspberries, 

 and I think many of you have had the same observation 

 We found, many times, very fine wild plantations in the 

 meadows and swamps, and also found them at the other ex- 

 treme, as on strong clay land, and yet we had no record of 

 the yield of these wild patches. 



In the light of experience extending over a great num- 

 ber of years in which work with many varieties and type* 

 has been carried on, I am going to tell you that the ideal 

 soil is a good gravelly loam well filled with humus. This 

 may be slightly modified by explaining other conditions 



