256 The Canadian Horticulturist. 



Encouraged thereby, he planted five acres on ordinary or rather thin soil, 

 and has not gathered an average crop in three seasons. A city florist and 

 tree jobber planted four Doolittle Raspberry plants where a compost heap 

 had lain. The growth was extraordinary ; they were twice pinched back 

 and one of the plants produced sixty-one canes that reached the ground and 

 took root. 



The experience of J. M. Smith, of Wisconsin, of Peter Henderson and 

 others, is that the ground that is full of humus and the unused portions of 

 manure used in vegetable gardening is the best for heavy crops of straw- 

 berries. 



On account of the white grub it is necessary to plant sod ground two 

 years in hoed crops to give this pest a chance to get out of the way, and the 

 common practice is to manure in the spring that the strawberries are planted, 

 or more frequently not manure at all. I am convinced that ordinary man- 

 uring just before planting does not pay in proportion to the cost, as in the 

 nature of things much of it does not become available until too late to help 

 the growth. It is far better to manure heavily the crops of corn and pota- 

 toes in the years of preparation, and thus get a double recompense. All 

 berry men agree that the first crop of strawberries is the one to work for, 

 and the extraordinary jdeld of two hundred bushels and upward per acre 

 is only obtained by the most careful attention to all those details that give 

 the highest yields of ordinary farm crops. 



In fitting the ground, it is best to beginearty, first ploughing deeply, then 

 pulverizing finel)', and finally floating down flat with a plank finisher or 

 boat. When the earliest farmers plough for oats then fit the ground, even if 

 it is a month or six weeks before planting. Weeds will start, but a sweep 

 of the trowel, removes those where the plant is to be placed, and cultivation 

 between the rows can commence at once, destroying the weeds and aerat- 

 ing the soil. 



The poorest part of a fruit farm may be planted in blackberries, with a 

 dead certainty that the land will improve in quality, and that the berries 

 will be less subject to winter-killing. If desirable the ground can be top- 

 dressed at any time afterward, by leaving the manure in piles in the cross- 

 paths and distributing with a hand-cart or wheelbarrow. The blackberry 

 not only sends its roots all through the soil, but has large and abundant 

 leaves which hang on until early winter snows bear them to the ground, 

 where wet and heavy they never blow away, but lie to form a mulch and aid 

 in the nutrification of the soil. In this way the blackberry not only holds 

 its own, but slowly gains on the soil. 



