11 



ON THE CULTIVATION OF RASPBERRIES. 



BY A PRACTICAL GARDENER. 



The usual method of managing raspberries is by staking each bundle of shoots 

 proceeding from one root, and tying the shoots up close to the stakes, allowing 

 the young shoots to arise up all around the bearing wood. This plan is preju- 

 dicial, inasmuch as it prevents the fruit from having the full advantage of the 

 sun, and the free circulation of air; the consequence of which is that the fruit is 

 never large or fine-flavoured. 



An improved method, which has been long practised in a few gardens with 

 excellent success, but not so generally as it ought to be, is to cut out all the 

 weakest shoots in winter, reducing the number for bearing upon each plant to 

 about six rods, and in place of staking them, so to dispose of them as to form 

 an arch, by beginning to plat one shoot from each together, and then platting 

 one from each alternately upon the first two until the whole are disposed of, by 

 which means they will be so firm that no stakes will be required. They should 

 be planted six feet apart, and the young plants left to grow upright. By this 

 treatment the young canes will send out their bearing branches from each plant 

 freely in the space between ; the trained canes will be freely exposed to the 

 influence of sun and air ; the fruit will be easily gathered, without having to put 

 the young canes aside as in the old method ; and, moreover, they have a more 

 pleasing appearance. 



A trial for one season in the manner recommended will not fail to make the 

 operator a convert to this plan. 



There is a variety of the raspberry known as the double-bearing, a few plants 

 of which ought to be grown for producing fruit in the autumn, which, if properly 

 managed, will continue bearing fruit until Christmas if the weather be mild. 



This sort, which may be grown like the others, produces fruit upon the old 

 wood at the ordinary season, and in the autumn from the extremity of the shoots. 

 However, when treated in this way, the crop is very uncertain and precarious. 

 To make the most of the autumn crop, the canes ought all to be cut clean ojf&t 

 the winter dressing, and as the young shoots advance in growth, five or six only 

 of the strongest should be selected for autumn fruiting (all the others being- 

 removed), by which means an abundant autumnal crop maybe ensured. The best 

 soil for raspberries is a deep rich loam, with an abundant supply of manure every 

 year, or at least every other year. 



