August 4,1881. ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
4th 
Th 
Sale of Orchids at Jtr. Stevens’s Booms, Covcnt Garden. 
5th 
P 
6th 
S 
7th 
Sun 
8tii Sunday after Trinity. 
8th 
M 
Camberwell Amateur Floral Society’s Show. 
9th 
TU 
Itoyal Horticultural Society, Fruit and Floral Committees at 
10th 
W 
[11 A.M. 
RASPBERRIES AND RATIONALISM. 
^§^}&ASPBERRY crops have been generally very 
good this year, but some of them might pos- 
i-twtyj sibly have been better had a more intelligent 
IWh ^ system of management been pursued in one 
extremely simple yet highly important parti- 
'QyQ cular—namely, thinning out the growths at the 
m proper time and in a proper manner. Raspberry 
canes are like young Vine rods ; if the wood is not 
matured and the buds in the axils of the leaves are not 
bold, the best crops of fruit cannot be expected. These 
essentials of fruitfulness cannot be produced if the growths 
are overcrowded in summer. It is the custom to thin out the 
canes of Raspberries during the winter—removing those that 
have yielded fruit, and at the same time a number of the young 
growths, retaining the best for producing the future crop. This 
is all very well, indeed the practice cannot be dispensed with ; 
but if Raspberries are well managed there is no necessity for 
doing such work in the winter, or very little of it will need to 
be done then. The proper time for thinning Raspberry canes 
is in early summer, say about May, and again in July or early 
August, immediately after the fruit has been gathered. There 
is time for the latter process now, and those who adopt it will 
find the benefit of having done so in the better crops of fruit 
that will be produced another year. 
At the present moment there are hundreds of plantations of 
Raspberries where the growths form a dense thicket. Each 
stool consists probably in the majority of cases of about half a 
dozen fruiting canes, or canes that have just fruited, and from 
twelve to twenty young growths, a limited number of which 
will be secured to the stakes or wires, the others being cut out 
or pulled up after the leaves have fallen. Let anyone who 
has a bed of Raspberries in the condition described examine 
the canes now, and those that have fruited will be barren quite 
half their length from the ground, while the new canes will 
only have bold buds near the top where they have been under 
the influence of light and air, the lower and stronger portions 
of the growths having no prominent buds in the leaf axils. 
Now the mere strength of a Vine or Raspberry cane is of little 
or no use for fruiting if the axillary buds are not fully de¬ 
veloped and the wood ripened. A Vine cane for instance, not 
thicker than a lady’s finger will, if short-jointed , studded with 
bold buds, and matured, afford a far better crop of Grapes 
than a cane half as thick again as a man’s thumb will produce, 
and that is green, soft, pithy, and destitute of round hard nut¬ 
like buds. 
It is not possible that hard fruitful growths can be produced 
97 
bjr the summer-crowding or thicket system—air and light must 
have access to the foliage in summer. It is no use admitting 
them to the leafless stems in winter, as the nature of these can¬ 
not then be changed. The overcrowded plantations require 
relief now—at once. Every day’s delay is dangerous. The first 
thinning really ought to have been done in the spring by pull¬ 
ing up the superfluous suckers when from 6 inches to a foot 
high, and those remaining, half a dozen or so from each root, 
would have been very different now—shorter-jointed, firmer, 
with bolder axillary buds almost to the base of the stems. If 
the young growths referred to are pulled up in wet weather in 
spring and planted at once they grow freely and form good 
canes by the autumn. Where this spring thinning has been 
neglected, as it has been in the great majority of gardens, let 
not the evil be aggravated by further neglect, but proceed 
promptly to remove the canes that have produced fruit, thin¬ 
ning out at the same time some of the current year’s growths 
if, as they are almost sure to be, too numerous, and those re¬ 
maining will yield twice the quantity of fruit that they would 
do if left to struggle for two or three months longer for the 
light and air they need, and in thus struggling exhaust them¬ 
selves and weaken the plantation. 
This work of summer-thinning is, if apparently simple, 
yet of real importance, but it can only be effectual by being 
properly done. A reckless boy or a rough workman will do as 
much harm as good. The thinning must be carefully and in¬ 
telligently done. The operator must be made to understand 
that while it is of importance to remove the old canes and 
superfluous growths, it is imperative that the leaves be left 
on those remaining, as without leaves now there can be no 
fruit next year, and if those leaves are not developed the crop 
cannot be satisfactory ; hence the importance of thinning in 
the first place, and the absolute necessity of doing the work 
with care and in a proper and reasonable manner. Every 
movement of a man’s body among the growths should be in 
obedience to reason, not in spite of it, and every movement of 
the hand and knife be accompanied by thought and guided by 
intelligence. This is what is meant by doing work in a reason¬ 
able manner. We want more of such work in gardens—more 
thought, and less of mere rule of thumb ; more individual in¬ 
telligence, and less of that blind follow-my-leader routine that 
has brought so many Raspberry beds into their present unsatis¬ 
factory state. Let us not leave them there, but adopt forth¬ 
with a more rational system of procedure, and assuredly great 
gain will follow. 
It is not at all difficult to remove the canes from Raspberries 
now and leave the foliage uninjured on those that are relied 
on for the next year’s crop. The operator must first make his 
selection of the best canes, then sever the others and remove 
them gently downwards until they lie flat on the ground. 
Scarcely a leaf need be broken in doing this work. The canes 
left may be very loosely secured to the stakes ; the refuse can 
then be removed, and the bed will have a neat appearance, 
showing that it is cared for and tended by a real gardener, 
and not by an untrained manual worker, so many of whom 
pass as gardeners now-a-days to the prejudice of competent 
men, and also, it may be added, of employers. No gardener 
ought to be placed in charge of any establishment of import¬ 
ance who is not able to give a reason for everything he does. 
He will then work on a sound principle, and certain of the 
results that will follow; but a man who works by guess, does 
No. 68.— Yol. III., Tutud Series- 
No. 1714.— Yon. LXVI, Old Series. 
