HOUSE AND GARDEN 
April, 1913 
277 
as careful attention 
as anything else in 
the garden. They 
will not require as 
much as most other 
things, and in pro¬ 
portion to the work 
and time spent on 
them will give you 
probably more satis¬ 
factory returns than 
any other of the an¬ 
nuals which, as a 
matter of course, 
you grow every year. 
And there is no 
danger of your hav¬ 
ing too much. Mo¬ 
dern berries of all 
sorts have been de¬ 
veloped to a point 
where their yield is 
quite marvelous. 
Nevertheless, any 
surplus there may be 
is to be most readily 
disposed of. Kind friends will assist you in your hour of need. 
The best time for setting out most of the small fruits is early 
in the spring, as early as the ground can be worked up to a nice 
condition for planting, so as soon as you finish reading this article 
you should look over your catalogue carefully and order what 
you will require. The one thing that keeps berries and small 
fruits out of every home garden is the fact that you have to 
wait one season before you begin to be rewarded for your fore¬ 
thought and energy in setting the plants out. If there is one 
thing above all others that the amateur gardener detests it is 
having to wait. He would rather dig up and devour a puny 
little radish at the end of four weeks than wait four months for 
the most delicious musk melon that ever mel¬ 
lowed on the vine in the autumn sun. And 
when you try to get him to set out a strawberry 
patch or grape vine or a few raspberry bushes, 
from which he will be able to gather nothing 
until the following season, you have a hard job 
on your hands in spite of the fact that these 
things will last for years and give him an 
abundance of the most delicious and prized 
morsels that are to be had from the garden. 
Even this objection has been partly overcome by 
our plant breeders. The new, fall-bearing straw¬ 
berries — such as Pan American and Autumn, 
will bear a fair crop of berries in the fall from 
plants set in the spring — the latter have the 
better berries but you must keep the runners 
pinched off, an easy task, to get good results the 
first season, only three or four months after 
planting! And raspberries, too, if you wish. 
At the end of this article you will find a 
sample order for small fruits, and if you do not 
find in your catalogue all the varieties mentioned 
there, select others or send in the order as it is 
and ask your seedsman to substitute other good 
varieties which he may be able to recommend for 
any of those which he does not carry in stock. 
Though the most difficult and the most im¬ 
portant part of your work is done when you get 
your order mailed, nevertheless, there are a few 
other little details to be attended to and one of these, which you 
should attend to at once and not wait until you receive a notice 
from the seedsman that your plants have been shipped, is to 
prepare the place where you are going to plant them. Remember 
that they will occupy the same place for years and therefore you 
should pick out a spot where they will be least likely to be in the 
way and least likely to be disturbed or injured by the man who 
plows the garden or the auto truck that delivers your coal. It 
will be, by far, the best scheme to have the whole plot which they 
are to occupy plowed up and thoroughly harrowed or dug or 
spaded or forked. And, of course, where you are going to put 
the strawberry bed the ground must be prepared in this way. 
Grape vines, currants and gooseberries even the cane fruits— 
raspberries and blackberries — may be dug in individual spots, 
but in this case, a generous sized hole should be prepared, for 
eighteen inches or more in depth, thoroughly pulverising it and 
enriching it with a little old manure or a few handfuls of bone 
meal. A good plan is to make a border a few feet wide along 
the fence or hedge or walk — which usually is not utilized for any 
specific purpose, and use this for small fruits, keeping the entire 
surface of it well cultivated at all times. While your fruits will 
do well on any fair garden soil, one word of warning may be 
necessary—none of them will do well where the under drainage 
is poor. Wet feet and good fruit are never to be found on the 
same vine, bush or tree. 
When the impatiently awaited package does finally arrive from 
the seedsman, set the plants out at once. If it is rainy weather 
so much the better. In planting, you should be especially care¬ 
ful of two things. First, not to let the roots of the plants become 
dried out by the wind or sun, and second, to put them into 
the ground so firmly that they will think they have been 
growing there six months. If you can’t do this with your 
fingers and knuckles, don't hesitate to use your feet. After 
they are planted 
you can rake or fork 
over the surface of 
the soil for an inch 
or two and leave it 
Red, black and white 
raspberries are easily 
grown, and mode¬ 
rate care will pro¬ 
duce giants like 
these, of the most 
delicious flavor 
Gooseberries, like currants, need an open, airy 
position for their best development 
