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Show Horticultural j I Hints j CLEANING UP A BERRY PATCH It Can Usually Be Brought Back to Productive State by Careful. Judicious Pruning. A patch of small fruit which has been allowed to grow as it will for a season or two is a tough proposition, but it can usually be brought hack to a productive slate by careful and judicious judi-cious pruning. Berries should be grown in rows. They should never be allowed to form a bramble patch nnd grow where they will. Sucker plants springing up from the roots of parent hushes is what causes them to form the bramble patches and it is likewise these sucker plants which so tax the roots that fruit production is an impossibility. Define rows at least six feet apart in your patch, then grub out all the other plants and hushes. If you want to use them for additional planting the work can he done early in the spring while the canes are in dormant and the roots transplanted to other rows. But remove the sucker plants, grub them out and keep them out In the future by constant cultivation during the growing senson. The canes should all he cut back to six to eight inches in height and the growth of new canes encouraged. Allow only three new canes to form to the bush and when they are two and one-half feet high, about the mid- die of the following summer, top them off with a hand sickle. This will stop any further growth in these canes, will make them strong and stocky so that they will stand upright without trellis or support. It also causes lateral branches to be sent out and it is on these lateral branches that the fruit is borne. These laterals are allowed to grow as they will, but the following follow-ing spring, just before fruiting season, sea-son, they are pruned back one-half in order to Improve the quality of the fruit produced. By following this plan the old berry patch, unless it is hopelessly diseased, can be restored to productivity within one year. Getting a berry crop Is merely a question of pruning and of t i - ' V; ; i Raspberry Canes Meld Upright by Linear System of Culture. sufficient moisture. And the moisture in an ordinary berry season can be supplied by constant cultivation during dur-ing the growing season, for it is just as important that the growing canes which are to bear next year's crop of berries should have n plentiful supply of moisture as for the berries. These canes are largely formed after the fruiting season and if cultivation and the consequent conservation of moisture mois-ture is discontinued after the fruiting has taken place these canes will of necessity ne-cessity not be as strong, well developed devel-oped and sturdy as they should be. Pruning of berries and all cane fruits should preferably be done in the spring just before the sap commences com-mences to flow and after all danger of killing frosts are past. Danger of winterkilling where fall or winter pruning is practiced is great, because the open end of the cane permits the frost to travel down the soft center of the canes to the roots. That is why spring pruning is to be preferred. In this pruning, remove all dead canes from the previous season's fruiting canes and also thin down the present canes to not more than three or four sturdy ones to each old, established root stock. Quality berries are worth more than a quantity of inferior berries ber-ries and these quality berries are produced pro-duced only where the roots are not overtaxed. Berries kept in a strong, sturdy condition con-dition by careful and systematic pruning prun-ing and by constant cultivation, just as one would cultivate the cornfield, will remain productive for years. A good manure mulch every fall will aid them during the winter and will keep up the available supply of plant food. |