DIRECTIONS FOR BLUEBERRY CULTURE. 91 
plant send up new shoots, all of the same age, to form a wholly new 
and symmetrical top.» With lowbush hybrids it has been found de- 
sirable at Whitesbog to remove each year, in late July or early 
August, immediately after the picking season, all the stems more 
than 1 year old which have not made vigorous new twig growth 
during the season. Under such treatment the bushes yield a good 
crop of berries every year. Farther north, where the growing sea- 
son is shorter, such pruning should be done in late autumn or very 
early spring. . 
It has long been known that the occasional burning of lowbush 
blueberry areas increases the yield of fruit. In the blueberry can- 
ning districts of Maine this has led to the development of a system 
of burning the blueberry barrens once in three years. In the summer 
following the burning the plants do not fruit, but they send up from 
the ground an enormous number of vigorous unbranched big-leaved 
stems. Late in the season fruit buds are formed in abundance on’ 
the upper part of these stems, and in the second summer after the 
burning the plants fruit heavily. They are likely also to yield fairly 
well the third summer, but after that they usually become unproduc- 
tive. The burning should be done in the dormant season when the 
plants have dropped their leaves and the roots are fully stored with 
starch and other reserve foods. From these stored materials are 
formed the vigorous sprouts of the following spring. If an area 
is burned in late spring or in summer, after the stored food mate- 
rials have been used up and before the storage for the following year 
has taken place, the plants will be seriously weakened. The best 
time for burning is in early spring, before the buds have begun to 
push. <A day should be selected when the upper layers of dead leaves 
are dry enough to carry a fire and the underlying turf of upland 
peat is still wet. For if the fire burns so deeply as to consume the 
layer of peat, from which the plants derive the principal part of their 
nourishment, their later growth and their fruiting vigor will be 
seriously impaired. The beneficial effect of burning a blueberry area 
has led to the idea that wood ashes are a good fertilizer for blue- 
berries. Experiments have shown, however, that one of the most 
effective ways to kill a blueberry plant is to give the soil an applica- 
tion of wood ashes sufficient to neutralize its acidity. When a blue- 
berry area is properly burned the layer of ashes is very thin, quite 
insufficient to neutralize the acidity of the underlying peat turf, and 
therefore harmless, probably indeed under these conditions beneficial. 
The chief benefits from burning are two, both quite distinct, however, 
from the fertilizing effect. Burning tends to keep down tree growth 
and other competing vegetation, and it prunes the blueberry bushes. 
Burning is by far the least expensive and most effective method 
known for pruning lowbush blueberries. The procedure is espe- 
