63 



out in fall or spring, may be safely moved in May or June, after 

 they have made a growth of six inches. This, however, is not 

 recommended as the best time to set them, as their growth will 

 be checked, and they will not make as strong plants the first 

 year as those transplanted early in spring. The practice may 

 be adopted in filling vacancies, or when, for any reason, spring 

 setting has been delayed. 



PRUNING THE RASPBERRY. 



This important operation is often neglected, or performed, if 

 at all, too late in the season, after the canes have made their 

 growth, and become hard and woody. The object of pruning, 

 or "pinching back," as it is called, is to cause the plants to form 

 a stocky growth, well furnished with lateral branches, rather 

 than tall, naked canes. The latter are too much exposed to 

 high winds the force of which they cannot resist, and require 

 stakes to keep them in place. Such canes will give but a small 

 amount of fruit as compared with plants that have been clipped 

 earl} 7 , when two or two and a half feet high. Pinching while 

 the plant is growing causes it to send out numerous lateral 

 branches that will greatly increase the crop and size of fruit. 

 Such low, bushy plants will require no stakes or wires as a 

 support. 



If the pinching is neglected until the canes become hard, but 

 few side branches will be formed, and such as do form will not 

 have time to mature so as to endure the winter. The process 

 requires that each shoot should be stopped when it has reached 

 the proper height, say two or three feet, according to the 

 strength of the cane. As all the canes will not attain the proper 

 height at once, it will be necessary to go through the rows two 

 or three times during the season of growth, commencing about 

 the middle of June. The lateral branches should be clipped 

 when eighteen inches long. In this way the plants may be 

 trained into a hedge-row, so as to admit of more convenient 

 cultivation and picking of the fruit. If allowed to grow at will, 

 cultivation and picking will be well-nigh impossible. The neg- 

 lected raspberry patch soon becomes a mass of tangled brambles 

 that no picker or cultivator would be persuaded to enter a sec- 



