PROPAGATION, CULTURE, ETC. 25 I 



plow. Any one who has traced blackberry roots in light 

 soils will seek to give them foraging- room. Neither does 

 this fruit require the fertility needed in most instances by 

 the raspberry. It inclines to grow too rankly at best, and 

 demands mellowness rather than richness of soil. 



More room should also be given to the blackberry than 

 to the raspberry. The rows should be six feet apart in the 

 garden and eight feet in field culture, and the plants set 

 three feet apart in the rows. At this distance, 1,815 are 

 required for an acre, if one plant only is placed in a hill. 

 Since these plants are usually cheap, if one is small or un- 

 provided with good roots, it is well to plant two. If the 

 ground is not very fertile, it is well to give the young plants 

 a good start by scattering a liberal quantity of muck com- 

 post down the furrow in which they are planted. This in- 

 sures the most vigorous growth of young canes in the rows 

 rather than in the intervening spaces. As generally grown, 

 they require support, and may be staked as raspberries. 

 Very often, cheap post-and-wire trellises are employed, 

 and answer excellently. Under this system they can be 

 grown in a continuous and bushy row, with care against 

 overcrowding. 



The ideal treatment of the blackberry is management 

 rather than culture. More can be done with the thumb 

 and finger at the right time than with the most savage 

 pruning-shears after a year of neglect. In May and June 

 the perennial roots send up vigorous shoots that grow with 

 amazing rapidity, until from five to ten feet high. Very 

 often, this summer growth is so brittle and heavy with foh- 

 age, that thunder-gusts break them off from the parent stem 

 just beneath the ground, and the bearing cane of the com- 

 ing year is lost. These and the following considerations 

 show the need of summer pruning. Tall, overgrown canes 



