Grow Your Own Fruit 
V. THE BUSH AND SOFT-FRUITED BERRIES—THE BEST METHODS 
OF CULTIVATION TO SECURE FINER FRUIT THAN YOU CAN BUY 
by F. F. Rockwell 
Photographs by N. R. Graves and Charles Jones 
PfERE are two classes of fruit very seldom found of perfect 
A quality in the home garden — the soft-frnited berries and 
the bush berries. If they are to be seen at all you will find them 
stuck away along some fence or in some corner, overgrown with 
a grass sod and covered about their roots inches deep with old 
leaves, twigs and decayed branches, and all the accumulating 
debris of years of neglect. All this abuse is simply because they 
will stand it, and still yield a meagre crop of small, poorly flavored 
fruit. Raspberries, blackberries or currants, grown under such 
conditions, are no more like fruit from the same vines or bushes 
properly cared for, than a wizened, acid, wild crab-apple is like a 
nice, plump, juicy Winesap. 
This neglect can hardly be due to any 
difficulty in the way of the culture of 
these small fruits; for the amount of 
care they require each season, after 
once established, is much less than that 
demanded by the vegetable patch. It 
is simply that we have got into the way 
of letting them go untended, and taking 
it for granted that home-grown berries 
of these sorts must be far inferior to 
those we see for sale in the markets, 
when these frequently are the very same 
varieties simply given proper care. Far 
from its being impossible to grow good 
fruit of this sort in the home garden, it 
is particularly desirable to grow it there, 
because all the soft berries naturally 
stand transportation very poorly, and 
even if carried only a few miles in a 
wagon, become more or less mussed and 
crushed from their own weight. The 
only way to have them at the very best 
is to grow them in the home garden ; 
and when one knows how very few 
plants it will take, if properly treated, 
to produce all one family will need, there is no excuse for not 
having them. 
The soft-fruited berries — raspberries, blackberries and dew¬ 
berries— are all treated in much the same way. Any situation 
where they get the full sun, and the soil is well drained, will an¬ 
swer. It may be at the side of the vegetable garden, or a narrow 
strip along a fence. If there is not room otherwise, they may be 
trained against the fence. If there is any choice as to soil, use 
that in which there is considerable clay. 
The spot selected should be well enriched with old manure, and 
dug down to a depth of at least eight inches. The size needed can 
readily be decided, as the plants will 
require about four feet in the row and 
six between rows — some sorts taking 
a little more and some a little less 
space than this. The best time for 
planting is in early spring. Get your 
plants from a reliable nursery or 
seedsman, and have the ground ready 
to plant them immediately upon ar¬ 
rival. Set them in the soil an inch 
or so deeper than they have been 
grown in the nursery, working the 
earth in carefully and firmly about 
the roots. At the time of planting, 
cut the canes back to six or eight 
inches. These plants will not bear 
fruit until the following year; but if 
one wishes fruit the same year, it can 
be had by ordering extra plants, and 
setting these between the plants set 
out for the permanent bed. These 
extras are cut back only a little, leav¬ 
ing them about two feet high. They 
will bear fruit the same year as 
planted, but are not likely to do much 
the following year, so it is best to pull 
Blackberry bushes in bloom beautify the garden 
wrten well set out and supported 
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