THE RASPBERRY. 



5()9 



of the bearing canes will cause every bud to break, the fruit-bearing laterals 

 will be exposed to the sun and air without being crowded by the suckers, and 

 the latter have more room for their foliage, and hence grow stronger, and 

 ripen their wood better. This being the easiest and most economical mode 

 of training the canes, is that most generally adopted in gardens. AVhere 

 very large fruit is required, the whole or the greater part of the suckers may 

 be destroyed as fast as they appear, and the blossoms may be thinned ; but 

 this practice, by destroying the plant, requires a double plantation, — one for 

 producing suckers, and another for producing fruit ; and hence it should 

 only be adopted in gardens where there is abundance of room. To obtain 

 a successional crop late in the season, the canes of the red and yellow Ant- 

 werp, and of the twice-bearing varieties, may be cut down to the ground in 

 spring, and the suckers, which will be produced with more than usual vi- 

 gour, may be stopped in the beginning of June, which will cause the buds to 

 break and produce fruit late in the season ; generally, till it is destroyed by 

 frost. The suckers of the twice-bearing raspberry naturally produce a 

 second crop, —that is, they produce fruit the first year as well as the second. 

 The ground between the rows should be manured and dug every year, but 

 no attempt should be made to grow a crop between the rows after the first 

 year. A new plantation may be made every six or seven years, or oftener, 

 if the plants should show any symptoms of degeneracy ; or if their tra- 

 velling roots should grow out of bounds, which they are very apt to do from 

 the outside suckers always being the strongest, and consequently selected for 

 bearing in preference to the inside suckers. The doctrine of the excretions 

 of the roots of plants (917), has also been alleged as a reason for renew- 

 ing a plantation of raspberries more frequently than is done in the case of 

 most other plants, (see G. M. vol. x. p. 14), but general experience does 

 not appear to us to justify any treatment in respect to the raspberry not 

 equally applicable to other plants with travelling roots, which remain 

 several years on the same spot. 



1233. Gathering. — The fruit begins to ripen in the end of June, and con- 

 tinues being produced till October. It should be gathered immediately after 

 it becomes ripe, which is known by every part of it being equally high- 

 coloured, and by the pulpy part separating readily from the conical recep- 

 tacle. If allowed to remain ripe on the plant for two days, the eggs of a 

 beetle, By turns tomentosus, which had been deposited in it when in flower, 

 become maggots, and render it unfit to be used. If gathered and kept two 

 or three days, the same effect takes place ; or the fruit becomes mouldy and 

 unfit for use. 



1234. Forcing. — The raspberry forces equally well with the gooseberry and 

 currant, either in pots or planted in the free soil of a cherry -house ; or it may 

 be planted in pits, and trained under the glass, which is the practice in 

 Holland. 



1235. The Cloudberry, Rubus Chamaemorus, L., the fruit of which is 

 superior in flavour to that of the raspberry, grows on mountains in the High- 

 lands of Scotland and Sweden, in moist, peaty places, but it is cultivated 

 with great difficulty in gardens. The crimson bramble, R. arcticus, has 

 also a high-flavoured fruit, and it may be grown even in the neighbourhood 

 of London, in beds of moist peat. The dewberry, R. casius, the stone 

 bramble, R. saxatilis, the upright bramble, R. suberectus, and the common 

 bramble, R. fruticosus, may all be cultivated in gardens, by the amateur 



