1 62 Success with Small Fruits. 



of sand and decayed leaves, and subjected to the heat of the green-house. 

 When they have formed plants from three to five inches high, they may be 

 potted, if very valuable ; or, if the weather is warm enough, they can be 

 transplanted at once into the open nursery-bed, as one would a strawberry 

 plant I have set out many thousands in this way, only aiming to keep a 

 little earth clinging to the roots as I took them from the shallow box. 

 Plants grown from cuttings are usually regarded as the best ; but if a sucker 

 plant is taken up with fibrous roots, I should regard it as equally good. 



If we wish to try our fortune in originating new varieties, we 

 gather the largest and earliest berries, dry them and plant the seeds the 

 following spring ; or we may separate the seeds from the pulp by express- 

 ing it and mixing them with dry sand, until they are in a condition to 

 be sown evenly in a sheltered place at once. As with strawberries, 

 they should be raked lightly into moist, rich soil, the surface of which 

 should not be allowed to become dry and hard. The .probabilities are 

 that they will germinate early in the spring and produce canes strong 

 enough to bear the second year. If the seed is from a kind that cannot 

 endure frost, the young plant should receive thorough winter protection. 

 There is nothing better than a covering of earth. In the spring of the 

 second year, cut the young plant down to the ground, and it will send 

 up a strong, vigorous cane, whose appearance and fruit will give a fair 

 suggestion of its value the third year. Do not be sure of a prize, even 

 though the berries are superb and the new variety starts off most 

 vigorously. Let me give a bit of experience. In a fine old garden, 

 located in the center of the city of Newburgh, N. Y., my attention was 

 attracted by the fruit of a raspberry bush whose roots were so inter- 

 laced with those of a grape-vine that they could not be separated. It 

 scarcely seemed to have a fair chance to live at all, and yet it was 

 loaded with the largest and most delicious red raspberries that I had 

 then ever seen. It was evidently a chance, and very distinct seedling. 

 I obtained from Mr. T. H. Roe, the proprietor of the garden, permission 

 to propagate the variety, and in the autumn removed a number of the 

 canes to my place at Cornwall. My first object was to learn whether it 

 was hardy, and, therefore, not the slightest protection was given the 

 canes at Newburgh, nor even to those removed to my own place, some 

 of which were left four feet high for the sake of this test. The winter 

 that followed was one of the severest known ; the mercury sank to 30 

 below zero, but not a plant at either locality was injured; and in the 

 old garden a cane fourteen feet long, that rested on the grape-arbor, was 

 alive to the tip, and in July was loaded with the most beautiful fruit I had 



