348 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



results than an adjoining portion without a cover-crop. In 

 most of New England mammoth clover will prove a more 

 reliable plant for this purpose than crimson clover. The 

 advantage of clover is that it adds nitrogen as well as humus, 

 and with a g'ood o-rowth little or no nitrogen will be needed 

 in the fertilizer. The past spring mammoth clover on our 

 grounds showed a uniformly strong, bright green cover, while 

 crimson clover was nearly all dead. Some winters the 

 latter will go through with little harm. 



AYhether to keep blackberries and red raspberries in hills, 

 or aUow them to form hedge rows, must be decided soon 

 after tillage begins. Under favora])le conditions, hills give 

 ffood results : but with us hedo'e rows have vielded much 

 better. The cultivator should be kept close to the rows, to 

 prevent the hedge from becoming too wide. In older plan- 

 tations some thinning out may be desirable, but this is 

 expensive, and should be avoided. It is usually better to 

 replant in a new location rather than spend much time in 

 thinning an old hedge. 



Pruning. 



Pruning methods differ. Some prefer to let plants of all 

 varieties grow their own way during the sunnner, merely 

 thinning out and cutting back the canes the following spring. 

 My own preference is to pinch back the growing shoots of 

 blackcaps and blackberries Avhile they are still low, not over 

 eighteen or twenty inches high. This induces them to 

 branch and form a self-supporting bush. Such a bush is 

 not so easily laid down for winter protection as when each 

 cane is left unpruned ; it also demands more work in the 

 spring pruning. There is likewise a further objection, that 

 it forms a more compact plant, which does not dr>' out so 

 (juickly when in leaf, and is therefore ai)parently more sub- 

 ject to the spread of plant diseases. Anthracnose is more 

 troublesome upon plants treated in this way than upon those 

 allowed to grow as single canes. For the home garden, if a 

 trellis is to be provided, to which the canes may be tied, it 

 is doubtless as well to let them grow in their own way. 

 Red raspberries give best results in cither case if no sunnner 

 pruning is done. It is iniportiint that this })inching be done 



