UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



BULLETIN No. 974 



Washington, D. C. 



Contribution from the Bureau of Plant Industry 

 WM. A. TAYLOR, Chief 



PROFESSIONAL PAPER 





October 15, 1921 



DIRECTIONS FOR BLUEBERRY CULTURE, 1921/ 



By Frp:depjc'k ^'. Coville, Botamfit. 



CONTENTS. 



I'age. 



Early experiments with blueberries. 1 



Special requirements - 



Importance of superior varieties 4 



Propagation 6 



Budding C 



Stumping 8 



Soil mixtures for blu^erries 9 



Tubering 10 



Winter cuttings 12 



Page. 

 Propagation — Continued. 



Root cuttings 14 



Mound layering 15 



Treatment of young plants 15 



Field planting 16 



Yield 22 



Hybrid blueberries 23 



Oonclusijon ^ 24 



EARLY EXPERIMENTS WITH BLUEBERRIES. 



The experiments which have led to the present publication were 

 be^un in 1906. The work of the first four years resulted in a publi- 

 cation entitled " Experiments in Blueberry Culture," issued in 1910,^ 

 This work was widely distributed, and a copy came into the hands of 

 Miss Elizabeth C. White, New Lisbon, N. J. Miss White at once 

 perceived the significance of the experiments and the importance of 

 testing their application to the waste lands surrounding her father's 

 cranberry bogs. An informal agreement of cooperation resulted. 

 In 1913 this was replaced by a formal contract, thQ object of which 

 was to provide suitable conditions for a field test of the blueberiy 

 hybrids produced in the course of the experiments at Washington, 

 D. C. The location of the testing plantation is at Whitesbog, 4 miles 

 east of Browns Mills, N. J., in the sandy, peaty, acid soil of the pine 

 barrens. Up to the present time 16 acres have been planted with 

 27,000 different hybrid seedlings. Thus far, about 18,000 of these 



1 Revised by the writer from " Direct inus for Rhiel>erry Culture, 1916," which was 

 published as United States Dopartmcnt of Agriculture Bulletin 3."?4. 



' The publication mentioned, issued as Bulletin No. 193 of the Bureau of Plant In- 

 dustry, gave a dt>taiIod account of the principles of blueberry culture, including the .soil 

 requirements and peculiarities of nutrition of the blueberi-y phuit and the details of the 

 growing of seedlings. It containe<l 100 pages of text, with 18 plates and 31 test figures. 

 It was reissued in 1911. Both editions are now out of print. 

 53.'?19'>— 21— Bull. 974 1 



