52 



loliage had the larger berries ; they looked like a perfect 

 berry, as large as your thumb, and yet when you tasted them 

 they lacked the flavor that the smaller berry had. I was 

 trying to find out whether it was cultivation or lack of sun- 

 sJiine and air. 



THE CHAIRMAN: I think it might be both. We will 

 tt^ke up a few- more Cjuestions. "Is it necessary to grow 

 s(!veral varieties to insure pollination of the blossom of red 

 laspberries?" 



MR. AIKEN: No, I do not think it is. In blackberries 

 tbey may have to raise several varieties; in raspberries I do 

 not know of any variety but Avhat is self-pollinaiecl. 



I\IR. WHEELER: I would like to know what he would 

 use for fertilizer. 



MR. AIKEN: We put on almost anything or nothing. 

 AVe raise practically all of ours on new land and do not 

 fertilize them at all. About the only rule to foUoAv is to 

 look out about getting on too much lime and potash ; you can 

 be too good to them in this respect, I think. We had a test 

 a year ago of acid ])hosphate and muriate of potash and ni- 

 trate of soda, and they would grow nothing until the rainy 

 season began. We could tell the row that had the nitrate 

 of soda as far as we could see, but after the rainy season be- 

 gan you could not tell it from the other three rows. 



MR. H. A. HUSTON OP GER:\IAN KALI CO : I have 

 been trying for some years to find out something bearing on 

 tnat point, and I think I wrote IMr. Wheeler the other day 

 ihat I might come up and discuss the matter a little, and if 

 you wish it I can give you the results of some of that work. 



What we are after is a systematic fertilizer test conduct- 

 ed just as they are conducted at any experiment station, 

 cud one of these happens to be on a raspberry place up at 

 Montague. The plants were set in 1912 on very thin soil 

 and the work continued in 1913 and 1914. Noav, the system 

 is this ; the base of it is a complete fertilizer, so called, which 

 carried 3% of nitrogen and 8 % of phosphoric acid and 

 !]0 % of potash. We leave out an element in tiu-n to deter- 



