1 68 Success with Small Fruits. 



much time as it does prompt action at the proper period of growth. In 

 the garden, summer pinching can transform a raspberry bush into an orna- 

 mental shrub as beautiful as useful. It is much better adapted to the 

 hardier varieties than to those that must be bent down and covered with 

 earth. With the R. Occidentalis species, summer pinching would always 

 pay well. The best I can do, usually, with the red varieties, is to prune in 

 November and March it should be done before the buds develop. Unless 

 early fruit is wanted, I believe in cutting back heroically. Nature once gave 

 me a very useful hint. One very cold winter, a row of Clarke raspberries 

 was left unprotected. The canes were four or five feet high, but were killed 

 down to the snow-level, or within eighteen inches of the ground ; but from 

 what was left uninjured, we had as many and far finer berries than were 

 gathered from other rows where the canes had been left their full length and 

 protected by a covering of earth. The fruit was later, however. I would 

 remind careful observers of the raspberry how often buds on canes that 

 have been broken off or cut away back develop into long sprays, enormously 

 fruitful of the largest berries. I have counted fifty, and even eighty, berries 

 on a branch that had grown from a single bud within one or two feet of the 

 ground. These lower buds often do not start at all when the canes are left 

 their full, or nearly their full length. In the latter case, the fruit ripens 

 much earlier and more together, and since an early crop, though inferior 

 in quality and quantity, may be more valuable than a late one, the fruit 

 grower often objects to pruning. But in the garden, while the canes of 

 some early kinds are left their full length, I would recommend that others, 

 especially those of the later varieties, be cut back one-half. Even for 

 market purposes, I believe that the superb fruit resulting from such pruning 

 would bring more money in most instances. At any rate, the season of 

 bearing would be greatly prolonged. 



Mulching on a large scale would not pay in most localities. In regions 

 where salt hay, flags, etc., can be cut in abundance, or when straw is so 

 plenty as to be of little value, it no doubt could be applied profitably. On 

 Staten Island, I have seen large patches mulched with salt hay. The canes 

 were unstaked, and many of them bent over on the clean hay with their 

 burden of fruit. When there are no stakes or other support used, the 

 berries certainly should be kept from contact with the soil. The chief 

 advantage of the mulch, however, is in the preservation of moisture. When 

 it is given freely, all the fruit perfects, and in a much longer succession. 

 The weeds and suckers are kept down, and the patch has a neat appear- 

 ance. Moreover, mulching prevents the foliage from burning, and enables 

 the gardener to grow successfully the finer varieties farther to the south 



