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Page 38
In treating the two remaining small fruits, blackberries and
strawberries, we pass wholly out of the shade and away from trees.
Sunshine and open ground are now required. Another important
difference can also be mentioned, reversing former experience.
America is the home of these fruits. The wild species of the
blackberry abroad has never, as far as I can learn, been developed
into varieties worthy of cultivation; and before importations from
North and South America began, the only strawberry of Europe was
the Alpine, with its slight variations, and the musky Hautbois.
I do not know whether any of our fine varieties of blackberries
are cultivated abroad, but I am perfectly certain that they are
worthy of the slight attention required to raise them in
perfection here.
Like the blackcaps, all our best varieties are the spontaneous
products of Nature, first discovered growing wild, and transferred
to the garden. The blackberry is a fruit that takes kindly to
cultivation, and improves under it.
The proper treatment is management rather than cultivation and
stimulation. It requires a sunny exposure and a light, warm soil,
yet not so dry as to prevent the fruit from maturing into juicy
berries. If possible, set the blackberries off by themselves, for
it is hard to prevent the strong roots from travelling all over
the garden. The blackberry likes a rich, moist, mellow soil, and,
finding it, some varieties will give you canes sixteen feet high.
You do not want rank, thorny brambles, however, but berries.
Therefore the blackberry should be put where it can do no harm,
and, by a little judicious repression, a great deal of good. A
gravelly or sandy knoll, with a chance to mow all round the patch,
is the best place. The blackberry needs a deep, loose soil rather
than a rich one. Then the roots will luxuriate to unknown depths,
the wood ripen thoroughly, and the fruit be correspondingly
abundant.
Let the rows be six feet apart; set out the plants in the fall, if
possible, or EARLY spring; put two plants in the hills, which may
be four feet apart. If the ground is very poor, give the young
plants a shovelful of old compost, decayed leaves, etc. Any
fertilizer will answer, so that it is spread just over the roots
to give the plants a good send-off.
As a rule, complete success in blackberry culture consists in a
little judicious work performed in May, June, and July. The
plants, having been set out as I have advised in the case of
raspberries, throw up the first season strong green shoots. When
these shoots are three feet high, pinch off the top, so as to stop
upward growth. The result of this is that branches start on every
side, and the plant forms a low, stocky, self-supporting bush,
which will be loaded with fruit the following season.
The second year the plants in the hill will send up stronger
canes, and there will be plenty of sprouts or suckers in the
intervening spaces. When very young, these useless sprouts can be
pulled out with the least possible trouble. Left to mature, they
make a thorny wilderness which will cause bleeding hands and faces
when attacked, and add largely to the family mending. That which a
child could do as play when the suckers were just coming through
the ground, is now a formidable task for any man. In early summer
you can with the utmost ease keep every useless blackberry sprout
from growing. More canes, also, will usually start from the hill
than are needed. Leave but three strong shoots, and this year
pinch them back as soon as they are four feet high, thus producing
three stocky, well-branched bushes, which in sheltered places will
be self-supporting. Should there be the slightest danger of their
breaking down with their load of fruit, tie them to stakes by all
means. I do not believe in that kind of economy which tries to
save a penny at the risk of a dollar.
I believe that better and larger fruit is always secured by
shortening in the side branches one-third of their length in
spring. Fine varieties like the Kittatinny are not entirely hardy
in all localities. The snow will protect the lower branches, and
the upper ones can usually be kept uninjured by throwing over them
some very light litter, like old pea or bean vines, etc.--nothing
heavy enough to break them down. As soon as the old canes are
through bearing, they should be cut out. If the blackberry patch
has been left to its own wild will, there is nothing left for us
but to attack it, well-gloved, in April, with the pruning-shears,
and cut out everything except three or four young canes in the
hill. These will probably be tall, slender, and branchless,
therefore comparatively unproductive. In order to have any fruit
at all, we must shorten them one-third, and tie them to stakes. It
thus may be clearly seen that with blackberries "a stitch in time"
saves almost ninety-nine. Keep out coarse weeds and grass, and
give fertilizers only when the plants show signs of feebleness and
lack of nutrition.
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