276 GARDENING. 



shaded. A soil loose and moist (r,ot wet), and oc- 

 casionally and lightly manured with the surface 

 mould of old pasture land, is most favourable to it. 



Like other plants which perpetuate themselves 

 by suckers, as the Annana, the Jasmin, the Bread 

 Fruit, &c. r the raspberry soon becomes infertile; 

 and hence the rule for setting out new plantations 

 every seventh or eighth year. This is done by seeds 

 and cuttings, but better and more generally by suck- 

 ers, taken up in the fall or in the spring, and set out 

 in well-laboured trenches four feet asunder, and at 

 the distance in these of two and a half feet apart. 

 If placed nearer together, they crowd and injure 

 each other ; and if farther removed, they lose the 

 advantage of the shade they would otherwise mu- 

 tually furnish. 



The raspberry, when left to itself, remains long 

 barren, or productive only in leaves and wood ; but, 

 so soon as it acquires a sufficient number of lateral 

 branches, its fertility commences. To hasten this 

 effect, therefore, is the great desideratum in the cul- 

 ture of the plant ; and the knife is accordingly em- 

 ployed freely and annually, in removing the old 

 wood, and in shortening the young to one third of 

 its length. Of the retained and shortened shoots, 

 not more than five should be left to a bush ;* and if 

 they be either of the Antwerp races, they should bo 

 carefully covered with earth on the approach of 

 winter, as otherwise the effect of the frost will 

 much impair, if it does not entirely destroy, their 

 fertility for the ensuing season. 



We need scarcely add, that, though hardy, the 

 raspberry, to do well, must be kept from weeds. 



* Loudon. J. C. Kecht( Versuchder Weinbau) produces ber- 

 ries at Berlin much larger than are known elsewhere, by train- 

 ing a single stem to the height of 8 or 10 feet, and vigorously re- 

 moving all suckers. This is directly opposed to the theory of 

 shortening the stems for the purpose of producing side-shoots ; 

 without which, it has been generally thought that v he plant could 

 not be made productive. 



