Pruning and Training 127 



entirely without cultivation or care. This method can 

 hardly recommend itself, unless it be on some rough, 

 uncultivable and otherwise unutilized piece of ground. 

 As the season advances, the young canes spread out over 

 the ground and tend to interfere with cultivation. It 

 is only necessary to direct them along the row, like straw- 

 berry runners, however, and continue the cultivation but 

 one way, if the plants are so set as to admit of cultivation 

 both ways earlier. 



PRUNING AND TRAINING 



Very little pruning is required. Simply to shorten the 

 canes when they are tied up in spring, if too long, is all 

 that is necessary, unless there is a tendency to produce 

 too many canes, when all but four or five should be re- 

 moved. With any careful system of cultivation some 

 method of training is essential. Various plans have been 

 recommended from time to time, only part of which are 

 here mentioned. 



One plan consists of a low, flat trellis, of greater or less 

 width, eight or ten inches from the ground, on which the 

 plants are allowed to run. This may be a narrow one of 

 wire, made by driving stakes into the ground, ten or twelve 

 feet apart, and nailing strips of boards a foot or more 

 long, across the top. On these cross-strips wires are drawn 

 tightly, one at each end and usually two between. An- 

 other way of reaching the same end is to fasten pieces of 

 boards to stakes, running the boards lengthwise of the 

 row, one on either side, and nailing slats across between 

 them. Such a low. flat trellis raises the fruit off the 



