DIRECTIONS FOR BLUEBERRY CULTURE. uy 
rooting, and many plants are injured by an excessive loss of water 
before they have had time to make connection with the water supply 
of the surrounding soil through the development of new roots. The 
danger of such injury is greatest in the case of plants transplanted 
froma pots. The old root ball sends up most of its water to the leaves, 
and in consequence, being at first as a rule in imperfect capillary 
contact with the new eae soil, the root ball commonly contracts 
slightiy. The contraction is often sufficient to put the roots at the 
sides and bottom of the root ball permanently out of contact with 
the surrounding soil, and the plant may continue to suffer severely 
from drought, although the soil outside the root ball contains plenty 
of moisture. | 
An early autumn field planting has furnished a remarkably suc- 
cessful means of avoiding this trouble with potted plants. At this 
season the excessive heat of summer is over, the plants are in full 
and vigorous leaf, and, being taken from pots, carry their whole 
root system with them. The formation of new roots begins at once 
and proceeds with great activity until the leaves are shed, at the ap- 
proach of winter. In the spring, when new leaf growth begins, the 
plants are already well rooted in the soil. They pass through the 
early hot period without injury and eng remarkable size and 
vigor by autumn. 
In preparing for a field plantation one precaution of special im- 
portance must not be overlooked. For the production of a crop of 
fruit under field eonditions, insects are required to carry pollen from 
one flower to another. The honeybee works little on blueberry 
flowers. Her tongue is so short that she can not easily reach the 
nectar. The flowers are pollinated chiefly by bumblebees, whose 
tongues are long, and by some of the solitary wild bees that are small 
enough to crawl through the narrow opening of the corolla. (PI. 
X XI.) When blueberry flowers are pollinated with pollen from 
their own bush the berries are fewer, smaller, and later in maturing 
than when the pollen comes from another bush. Some bushes are 
almost completely sterile to their own pollen. (Pl. XXII.) The 
pollen of a plant grown from a cutting is likewise unsatisfactory for 
the pollination of the parent plant or of other plants grown from its 
cuttings. It is important, therefore, that a plantation should not be 
made up wholly from cuttings from one bush. Two stocks should 
be used, a row of plants from one stock being followed by a row 
from the other. 
In the permanent field plantation bushes of the wild swamp blue- 
berry or its hybrids should be spaced 8 feet apart each way. When 
they reach mature size they will nearly or quite cover the intervening 
spaces. When first planted, however, the bushes are preferably set 
53319°—21—Bull. 974 
