DIRECTIONS FOR BLUEBERRY CULTURE. 17 



rooting, and many plants are injured by an excessive loss of water 

 before they have had time to make connection with the water supply 

 of the surrounding soil through the deAelopment of new roots. The 

 danger of such injury is greatest in the case of plants transplanted 

 from pots. The old root ball sends up most of its water to the leaves, 

 and in consequence, being at first as a rule in imperfect capillary 

 contact with the new outside soil, the root ball commonly contracts 

 slightly. The contraction is often sufficient to put the roots at the 

 sides and bottom of the root ball permanently out of contact with 

 the surrounding soil, and the plant may continue to suffer severely 

 from drought, although the soil outside the root ball contains plenty 

 of moisture. 



An early autumn field planting has furnished a remarkably suc- 

 cessful means of avoiding this trouble with potted plants. At this 

 season the excessive heat of summer is over, the plants are in full 

 and vigorous leaf, and, being taken from pots, carrv" their whole 

 root system with them. The formation of new roots begins at once 

 and proceeds with great activity until the leaves are shed, at tlie ap- 

 proach of winter. In the spring, when new leaf growth begins, the 

 plants are already well rooted in the soil. They pass through the 

 early hot period without injury and develop remarkable size and 

 vigor by autumn. 



In preparing for a field plantation one precaution of special im- 

 portance must not be overlooked. For the production of a crop of 

 fruit under field conditions, insects are required to carry pollen from 

 one flower to another. The honeybee works little on blueberry 

 flowers. Her tongue is so short that she can not easily reach the 

 nectar. The flowers are pollinated chiefly by bumblebees, whose 

 tongues are long, and by some of the solitary wild bees that are small 

 enough to crawl through the narrow opening of the corolla. (PI. 

 XXI.) When blueberry flowers are pollinated with pollen from 

 their own bush the berries are fewer, smaller, and later in maturing 

 than when the pollen comes from another bush. Some bushes are 

 almost completely sterile to their own pollen. (PI. XXII.) The 

 pollen of a plant groAvn from a cutting is likewise unsatisfactory for 

 the pollination of the parent plant or of other plants grown from its 

 cuttings. It is important, therefore, that a plantation should not be 

 nuide up wholly from cuttings from one bush. Two stocks should 

 be used, a row of plants from one stock being followed by a row 

 from the other. 



In the permanent field plantation bushes of the wild swamp blue- 

 berry or its hybrids should be spaced 8 feet apart each way. "When 

 they reach mature size they will nearly or quite cover the intervening 

 spaces. "^AHien first planted, however, the bushes are preferably set 

 53310°— 21— Bull. 074 2 



