84 
WISCONSIN HORTICULTURE 
February, 1918 
plant growth necessary to produce 
a worthwhile crop. It would be 
like a farmer planting one kernel 
of corn in a hill. Unless we can 
grow the first season bushes thick 
enough and large enough to pro- 
duce a profitable crop the follow- 
ing year, we never will get from 
that field a profitable crop, the 
scab will take it before it has time 
to amount to anything. Scab 
does not show up so much the first 
year, but about the second season 
there is an abundance of it; how- 
ever, if we have a thick, hardy 
growth of bushes the first year, 
the new growth of the second 
year will also lie thick and a good 
deal of it will, of course, be affect- 
ed with scab, but where there is 
an abundant growth of bushes, 
though there be as many as half 
of them affected, we can cut out 
the diseased ones and still have 
left enough healthy canes for a 
fairly good stand. But if we had 
only a weak, thin stand to start 
with there would not be enough 
of them escape the scab to be 
worth while to leave. A bush if 
well cultivated will mature its 
fruit even if somewhat affected, 
but if practically covered with the 
disease it should by all means be 
cut out for the berries will dry 
up in spite of us. Don’t try to 
get more than two crops from the 
same planting. I have tried it 
several times and failed every 
time. Put out a new patch every 
spring. To keep the system go- 
ing, arrange it as follows. If you 
wish to fruit say four rows each 
year, two of these rows should be 
yearlings, and two rows should be 
two-year olds and you should 
plant in the spring two new rows 
and you should mow off and plow 
up the two rows of two-year-olds 
as soon as you have taken from 
them the season’s crop. 
For a number of years I have 
set the rows six and one-half feet 
apart but I believe six feet will do 
just as well, so next spring I shall 
set them that width. I mark out 
rows with single shovel the same 
as marking out for potatoes. 1 
use plants from my own patch, 
usually taking them from the rows 
of the yearlings. Wherever a 
branch of the black raspberry 
touches the ground it takes root 
provided the soil is loose and the 
season not too dry. In a well 
grown patch there are hundreds 
of such plants. But it is a good 
plan to go in with a hoe about the 
middle of August and pull some 
dirt over the tops, even bending 
down some of the branches and 
covering them. It will help them 
to take root sooner and form 
stronger plants. 
The system I am describing re- 
quires a lot of plants, and we must 
be careful to propagate all we can. 
The first trimming of the patch 
should be done the following 
spring. There has been a lot of 
discussion as to whether or not it 
is a paying proposition to provide 
a trellis of some kind to support 
the bushes. I am one of those 
who consider it well worth while 
to wire them up. Without a sup- 
port of some kind the wind blows 
them over and breaks off a lot of 
good canes. And at fruiting time 
a lot of the berries are down in the 
dirt and have to be discarded. 
Also they cannot be thoroughly 
cultivated while in that shape and 
the grass and weeds have a better 
ebance tOyStart and the patch has 
a pretty slack appearance gener- 
ally. 
The material to wire them will 
last for years, so the annual ex- 
pense for material will figure low. 
It requires considerable labor, but 
that is more than balanced by the 
saving in bushes, the better culti- 
vation afforded, the better condi- 
tion of the fruit and the conven- 
ience and satisfaction of havine 
them in such perfect order. I 
have a system of wiring that I 
have not seen used elsewhere, but 
of course it may be elsewhere. I 
set one post at each end of the 
row. With a post auger I bore 
down four feet and put in 6 foot 
posts, leaving two feet above 
ground. Set at that depth they 
require no braces. Next drive a 
stake every thirty feet in the row. 
To get the stakes I take seven-foot 
round, white cedar posts and saw 
them in the middle, then quarter 
each half and sharpen them with 
a hand ax. In that way one post 
costing 30 cents will make enougti 
stakes for a row of berries two j 
hundred and seventy feet long. 
Drive the stakes down good and 
solid but leave at least two feet 
above ground. Then nail to the 
stakes a eross-arm, after the fash- 
ion of the cross-arm on a tele- 
phone pole. The cross-arms should 
be one inch thick, fourteen inches 
long and two or thre 0 inches wide, 
— whatever one happens to have, 
— and should be nailed 20 inches 
from the ground. 
Now everything is ready for the 
two trellis wires. The size of the 
wire should be number 12 or 14. 
On one of the posts of each row 
should be fastened a couple of 
ratchets, one on each side of the 
post. The ratchet is a little de- 
vice with which the wires can al- 
ways be kept tight by turning up 
with a monkey wrench. They 
cost about three cents apiece and 
can be secured from most any 
mail order house. I v 7 ould not 
