DIRECTIONS FOR BLUEBERRY CULTURE. 934 
With beginners in blueberry culture every gradation in accom- 
plishment may be expected, from the great success indicated above 
to complete failure because of wrong soil, bad location, or poor 
management. 
The heaviest charge against the industry is the cost of producing 
rooted plants of selected varieties. At the present time plants of the 
best varieties can not be purchased in acre quantities. The grower 
must do his own.propagating from a few plants. The propagation 
is sufficiently difficult to demand unusual skill, and it requires con- 
stant and painstaking attention. 
If the land to be used bears timber and brush the clearing is 
expensive. 
After a plantation is established its maintenance 1s relatively 
inexpensive. The cost of cultivation is rather less than that of the 
staple cultivated crops. The principal charge is for the picking of 
the berries. At Whitesbog 6 cents a quart has been paid for the 
last few years. A good picker in an ordinary day picks about a 
bushel. An exceptionally skillful picker, with unusually favorable 
bushes, has picked 100 quarts, or more than 3 bushels, in a day. For 
shipment to the market in crates cultivated blueberries should be 
picked by hand, never with a “rake” or “scoop,” such as is used 
when blueberries are carted direct to commercial canneries. 
HYBRID BLUEBERRIES. 
Blueberry breeding has now been carried on for 10 years, with the 
result that instead of berries the size of peas, like the ordinary wild 
blueberry, we now have hybrids producing berries the size of Con- 
cord grapes. (Pls. XXVII to XXIX.) A few plants out of 
the 18,000 hybrids that have been fruited at Whitesbog are of the 
size shown in these illustrations, with berries three-fourths of an 
inch in diameter. A very few have borne berries even larger, a — 
little more than four-fifths of an inch in diameter, and in the green- 
house a diameter of seven-eighths of an inch has been reached. In 
the great majority of the hybrids, however, the berries are inter- 
mediate in size between ordinary wild ones and the selected hybrids. 
(Pl. XX VI.) All such small and intermediate hybrids are rejected. 
Propagation material placed in the hands of nurserymen for com- 
mercial propagation is taken from the selected hybrids only. 
The unselected hybrid berries vary in color from light blue to dark 
blue and sometimes shining black, and an occasional bush bears red 
berries, or even white ones. 
The variation of the blueberry hybrids in other respects is also 
very marked, the plants offering an almost endless opportunity for 
selection with reference to acidity, sweetness, flavor, juiciness, firm- 
