Proven Berry Plants i i KNOTT’S BERRY PLACE / r Trees and Vines 
Trellising —It pays to use posts made 
from the kinds of wood which is known 
to last well in the ground. In California, 
Redwood is the best material for posts. 
Do not use pine, for many of the posts 
will rot off in one year and will cause 
you no end of trouble later. All lumber 
dealers either have in stock, or can order 
6 ft. 2"x2" split redwood grape stakes, 
which make the best and most economical 
posts for berry trellises. Split stakes or 
posts are better than sawed posts be¬ 
cause they do not have knots. They are 
already sharpened and can be driven in 
soft ground. 
Use heavy end posts and stretch the 
wires the length of the rows. The end 
posts should be anchored or well braced, 
for all of the pull comes on them and the 
wires should be tight. It is better to tie 
your wire around the end posts than to 
staple it. On the inside posts it is better 
to set them corner-wise with the row, 
and saw notches about an inch deep, 
slanting down, for the wires to rest in. 
The lower wire should be on one side of 
the post and the upper wire on the other. 
This makes a cheap durable trellis, which 
is easy to take down, if you wish (as 
often happens) your trellis to be higher 
after the first year, all you have to do 
is to saw notches higher on the posts 
and raise the wires up, and there will be 
no staples to pull. 
We space the redwood posts about 30 
feet apart. After the wire is stretched 
and fastened up to the posts where we 
want it, we put a spreader between each 
post. This consists of two lathes, one 
on each side of the wires, with a small 
nail driven through them and clinched 
just below each wire. This prevents the 
wires from sagging or being drawn to¬ 
gether when the canes are wound up on 
them. We use No. 13 galvanized wire on 
top, and No. 14, below. 
For raspberries No. 16 galvanized wire 
is large enough. 
No. 13 wire goes about 45 feet to the 
pound; No. 14 about 52 feet, and No. 16 
about 70 feet per pound. 
For blackberries, Loganberries, Young- 
berries and Boysenberries, we make our 
trellis one wire above the other with top 
wire from 3 y 2 to 4% feet high, accord¬ 
ing to how long and how heavy the vines 
are and the lower wire about 2 feet from 
the ground. 
For raspberries, we use crossarms with 
two light wires about one foot apart. The 
crossarms are nailed to the posts at 
whatever height seems to support the 
canes best according to how high they 
are. The raspberry canes simply are pre¬ 
vented from falling down when they get 
heavy. 
SPRAYING — (Por the Commercal 
Grower)—In the past berries have re¬ 
quired very little spraying in California. 
During the past few years a microscopic 
mite known as the blister mite is be¬ 
coming bad in many sections of this 
state. This mite enters the blossoms of 
all the later sorts of blackberries and 
cause sections of the berry to remain 
red aftei the balance of the berry is 
ripe. In ail sections where this condition 
has appeared all varieties of blackber¬ 
ries, except the Advance and possibly 
the dewberries, should be sprayed. The 
Advance and the dewberries blossom 
very eaily and, so far as we know, have 
never been attacked by the blister mite. 
For this trouble spray in the spring, 
just when the leaf buds are starting to 
open with lime-sulphur, one to ten. That 
is, one gallon of commercial liquid lime- 
sulphur to ten gallons of water, or if 
you use the dry lime sulphur, use four¬ 
teen pounds to one hundred gallons of 
water. Now the above is dormant 
strength and will burn if used after the 
plants are leafed out, but should be used 
just when the leaf buds are starting to 
open and none of the leaves are more 
than one-half inch long. A thorough job 
of spraying at this time will get almost 
perfect control. In bad cases, or, to get 
absolute control, a second spraying 
should be given when the berries are 
about half through blossoming. This 
second spraying consists of five pounds 
of soluable, or wetable sulphur to one 
hundred gallons of water. For Hima¬ 
laya blackberries which blossom over a 
very long period, two or three sprayings 
during the blossoming time are advis¬ 
able. 
Even if your bush or vine berries 
have never been attacked by the red- 
berry mite, so that you do not feel it 
necessary to spray with lime-sulphur at 
the end of the dormant season for this 
trouble, still we believe a spraying with 
the lime-sulphur at this time will be 
very cheap insurance. Even if you were 
going to have no redberry trouble, which 
you cannot tell at spraying time, the 
good that the lime-sulphur spray would 
do in helping to control rose scale, thrips, 
and fungus diseases, would well warrant 
the small cost. This applies to all varie¬ 
ties of bush and vine berries, including 
One of our Youngberry fields. This field has been a good producer. 
26 
