Raspberries and Blackberries 



plants winter protection, and they also inter- 

 fere with the use of the cultivator, which 

 should be run along the rows frequently after 

 the seasons' crop of fruit has been gathered, to 

 keep grass and weeds from getting established 

 among the plants, and to prevent the soil from 

 becoming hard. 



Many ''scientific" growers of these plants 

 advocate a system of pruning for the young 

 growth of each season which is so complex in 

 its details that I do not believe one amateur 

 in a thousand ever attempts to follow it. I 

 am frank to admit that I never have, because 

 I could never see the necessity of it, for one 

 thing, and I did not have the time to devote 

 to such elaborate treatment, for another. My 

 system of pruning is so simple that there is 

 really hardly enough about it to be called a 

 system. It consists in nipping off the top of 

 the young canes, when they are about three 

 feet high. This encourages the production of 

 laterals, and gives as much bearing surface as 

 the plants can do justice to. This is all the 

 pruning my plants get, except in the cutting 

 away of the old growth, after fruiting, and the 

 occasional thinning out of young canes if there 



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