41 



supply the onlj^ equipment necessary. Free use of the 

 knife must be made with gooseberries and especially with 

 currants to keep the canes from overcrowding, to stimulate 

 and develop new growth and at the same time to remove 

 some of the older wood so that there may be a uniform and 

 continuous supply of young wood coming on to take the 

 place of the older and less vigorous stock which quickly 

 loses its flush of vigor, after the removal of two or three 

 heavy crops of fruit. The fruiting canes of raspberries and 

 blackberries should be removed and destroyed soon after 

 harvest time, to give the new growth more room and to 

 destroy insect or fungous foes which may be present. 



Time forbids a full discussion of pruning details. The 

 summer pruning or pinching out the terminal growth of 

 black raspberries and blackberries to secure well-branched 

 canes (the red raspberry is an exception to this rule) the 

 cutting back of these laterals the following spring, the 

 height of pruning the canes and other methods connected 

 with pruning vary in detail depending on conditions and 

 -are too well known to require full presentation at this time. 

 The tops of the plants of all the Small-Fruits under discus- 

 sion are cut back or shorten ed-in when set, for at trans- 

 planting time the stock has suffered severe root-pruning 

 and the tops should be correspondingly diminished. 

 INSECTS AND DISEASES. 



The Small-Fruit grower has his share of troubles from 

 insect and fungous foes. Plants do not thrive when beset 

 by insects or left to the mercy of disease. In some cases 

 only foliage or fruit may be affected, but in others the 

 plants are destroyed or rendered worthless. Leaf-eating 

 insects such as the worms on currants and gooseberries or 

 the sawfly of the raspberry readily succumb to applications 

 of arsenical poison; the dreaded San Jose scale on currants 

 and gooseberries is kept in check by lime-sulfur, winter 

 strength; soft-bodied sucking insects like the currant plant- 

 louse are destroyed, when hit, by tobacco extract such as the 

 Black Leaf 40 nicotine solution. Certain fungous troubles as 



