1 66 Success with Small Fruits. 



are covered with earth every winter. Keep the surface clean and mellow by 

 the use of the cultivator and hoe. With the exception of from four to six 

 canes in the hill, treat all suckers as weeds, cutting them down while they 

 are little before they have sucked half the life out of the bearing hill. Put 

 a shovelful or two of good compost any fertilizer is better than none 

 around the hills or along the rows, late in the fall, and work it lightly in 

 with a fork if 'there is time. The autumn and winter rains will carry 

 it down to the roots, giving almost double vigor and fruitfulness the follow- 

 ing season. If the top-dressing is neglected in the autumn, be sure to 

 give it as early in the spring as possible, and work it down toward the 

 roots. Bone dust, ashes, poudrette, barn-yard manure, and muck 

 with lime can be used alternate years, so as to give variety of plant 

 food, and a plantation thus sustained can be kept twenty years or more ; but 

 under the usual culture, vigor begins to fail after the eighth or tenth season. 

 The first tendency of most varieties of newly set red raspberries is to 

 sucker immoderately ; but this gradually declines, even with the most ram- 

 pant, and under good culture the fruiting qualities improve. 



In dry weather, the fork should not be used during the growing or 

 bearing season. The turning down of a strata of dry, hot soil next to the 

 roots must cause a sudden check and injury from which only a soaking 

 rain can bring full relief. But in moist weather, and periods preceding and 

 following the blossoming and fruiting season, I have often used the fork to 

 advantage, especially if there is a sod of short, succulent weeds to be turned 

 under as a green crop. If the ground between the hills was stirred 

 frequently with an iron garden- rake, the weeds would not have a chance to 

 start. This is by far the best and cheapest way of maintaining our part in 

 the unceasing conflict with vegetable evil. An Irish bull hits the truth 

 exactly the best way to fight weeds is to have none to fight; and raking 

 the ground over on a sunny day, about once a week, destroys them when 

 they are as yet but germinating seeds. At the same time, it opens the 

 pores of the earth, as a physiologist might express himself. Unfailing 

 moisture is maintained, air, light and heat are introduced to the roots in 

 accordance with Nature's taste, and the whole strength of the mellow soil 

 goes to produce only that which is useful. But this teaching is like the 

 familiar and sound advice " Form no bad habits." We do form them ; 

 the weeds do get the start of us, and therefore, as a practical fact, the old 

 moral and physical struggle must go on until the end of time. 



