GROWING SMALL FRUIT FOR PROFIT. 85 



were smothered. Oar workmen were apt to transplant the plants at 

 the depth indicated by the pieces of old canes which were left at- 

 tached, rather than planting the proper depth of two inches above 

 the little rootlets out of which the sprouts would come which make 

 the cane. Inexperienced workmen should guard against this in 

 planting out raspberry plantations. Thorough cultivation should 

 be kept up and the plants should be tipped when two or three feet in 

 height. 



We have never taken any pains to protect our raspberry planta- 

 tations in the winter. But from what I have seen in Colorado I am 

 satisfied that it would pay to protect gur raspberry plantations some- 

 what in the winter, either by scattering straw lightly over them or 

 mulching the ground. 



The Tyler gives us our earliest picking and the Gregg latest. We 

 have never sold our raspberries for less than fifteen cents wholesale 

 and sometimes twenty cents, and there has always been a brisk de- 

 mand for all we could supply. 



We have had a plantation of blackberries, for about five or six 

 years, of about two acres in extent. We have not found this com- 

 mercially profitable on the ground on which we are growing it, yet I 

 have noticed that my neighbor, Mr. Fisk, having a piece of ground 

 naturally moist, gets four times as much fruit as we do and of much 

 better quality. This leads us to infer that those who would grow 

 blackberries for more than their own use, that is, for commercial profit, 

 should be careful to select a piece of ground which naturally holds 

 moisture, and in this way they will get satisfactory returns. We find 

 mulching to be a very great help in increasing the crop and in caus- 

 ing the plantation to stand the winter better. One or two rows which 

 joined the currant plantation which we were mulching very heavily, 

 and which thereby received the part of the benefit intended to apply 

 to the currants, yielded much more freely and endured our climatic 

 difficulties much better than the others. Hence it would be inferred 

 that it would be judicious to mulch the blackberry patch freely, not 

 only helping to hold moisture and keeping the soil cooler and to a 

 certain extent increasing the fertility. 



We have not found a field of currants, growing for market, prof- 

 itable. In an open field the exposure and the warm south winds 

 keep the currants dryer and they have not yielded as well as we would 



