Success with Small Fruits Part 12

Many ask me: "Do strawberries mix by being planted near each other?"

They mix only by running together, so that you can scarcely distinguish the two kinds; but a Wilson plant will produce Wilson runners to the end of time; and were one plant surrounded by a million other varieties, it would still maintain the Wilson characteristics. It is through the seeds, and seeds only, that one variety has any appreciable effect upon another. Many have confused ideas on this point.

A man brought to the Centennial Exhibition, at Philadelphia, a pot of strawberries that attracted great attention, for the fruit was magnificent. I suggested to him that it resembled the Jucunda, and he said that it was a cross between that berry and the Seth Boyden. This was a combination that promised so well that I went twenty miles, on a very hot day, to see his bed, and found that the crossing was simply the interlacing of the runners of the two distinct varieties, and that I could tell the intermingled Jucunda and Boyden plants apart at a glance. Such crossing would make no marked change in varieties if continued for centuries.

The enemies and diseases of the strawberry will be grouped in a general chapter on these subjects.

CHAPTER XIX

RASPBERRIES--SPECIES, HISTORY, PROPAGATION, ETC.

I have given the greater part of this volume to the subject of strawberries, not only because it is the most popular fruit, but also for the reason that the principles of thorough preparation of the soil, drainage, culture, etc., apply equally to the other small fruits. Those who have followed me carefully thus far can soon master the conditions of success which apply to the fruits still to be treated. I shall now consider a fruit which is only second in value, and, by many, even preferred to all the others.

Like the strawberry, the raspberry is well connected, since it, also, belongs to the Rose family. It has a perennial root, producing biennial woody stems that reach a height of from three to six feet. Varieties, however, differ greatly in this respect. Usually, the stems or canes do not bear until the second year, and that season ends their life, their place being taken by a new growth from the root. The flowers are white or red, very un.o.btrusive, and rich in sweetness. The discriminating bees forsake most other flowers while the raspberry blossoms last. The pistils on the convex receptacle mature into a collection of small drupes, or stone fruits, of the same character as the cherry, plum, etc., and the seeds within the drupes are miniature pits. These drupes adhere together, forming round or conical caps, which will drop from the receptacle when over-ripe. I have seen the ground covered with the fruit of certain varieties, when picking has been delayed.

All peoples seem to have had a feeling sense of the spines, or thorns of this plant, as may be gathered from its name in different languages; the Italian term is _Raspo_, the Scotch _Raspis_, and the German _Kratsberre_, or Scratchberry.

The Greeks traced the raspberry to Mount Ida, and the original bush may have grown in the shadowy glade where the "Shepherd Alexandre," _alias_ Paris, son of Priam, King of Troy, gave his fateful decision in favor of Venus. Juno and Minerva undoubtedly beguiled the time, while the favored G.o.ddess presented her claims, by eating the fruit, and perhaps enhanced their compet.i.tive beauty by touching their cheeks with an occasional berry. At any rate, the raspberry of the ancients is _Rubus Idoeus_.

The elder Pliny, who wrote not far from 45 A.D., states that the Greeks distinguished the raspberry bramble by the term "_Idoea_," and, like so many other Grecian ideas, it has found increasing favor ever since. Mr.

A. S. Fuller, one of the best-read authorities on these subjects, writes that "Paladius, a Roman agricultural author who flourished in the fourth century, mentions the raspberry as one of the cultivated fruits of his time." It thus appears that it was promoted to the garden long before the strawberry was so honored.

While it is true that the raspberry in various forms is found wild throughout the continent, and that the ancient gardeners in most instances obtained their supply of plants in the adjacent fields or forests, the late Mr. A. J. Downing is of the opinion that the large-fruited varieties are descendants of the "Mount Ida Bramble," and from that locality were introduced into the gardens of southern Europe.

In America, two well-known and distinct species are enriching our gardens and gracing our tables with their healthful fruit. We will first name _R. Strigosus_, or the wild red raspberry, almost as dear to our memory as the wild strawberry. It grows best along the edge of woodlands and in half-shadowy places that seem equally adapted to lovers' rambles.

Nature, too, in a kindly mood, seems to have scattered the seeds of this fruit along the roadside, thus fringing the highway in dusty, hot July with ambrosial food. Professor Gray thus describes the native red species: "_R. Strigosus_, Wild Bed E. Common, especially North; from two to three feet high; the upright stems, stalks, etc., beset with copious bristles, and some of them becoming weak p.r.i.c.kles, also glandular; leaflets oblong-ovate, pointed, cut-serrate, white-downy beneath, the lateral ones (either one or two pairs) not stalked; petals as long as the sepals; fruit light-red, tender and watery, but high flavored, ripening all summer."

The second great American species, _R. Occidentals_, will be described hereafter. Since this book is not designed to teach botany, I shall not refer to the other species--_R. Triflorus, R. Odoratus, R. Nutkanno_, etc.--which are of no practical value, and, for the present, will confine myself to the propagation and cultivation of _R. Idoeus_ and _R. Strigosus_, and their seedlings.

PROPAGATION

Usually, varieties of these two species throw up suckers from the roots in sufficient abundance for all practical purposes, and these young canes from between the hills or rows are, in most instances, the plants of commerce, and the means of extending our plantations. But where a variety is scarce, or the purpose is to increase it rapidly, we can dig out the many interlacing roots that fill the soil between the hills, cut them into two-inch pieces, and each may be developed within a year into a good plant. Fall is the best season for making root cuttings, and it can be continued as late as the frost permits. My method is to store the roots in a cellar, and cut them from time to time, after out-of-door work is over. I have holes bored in the bottom of a box to ensure drainage, spread over it two inches of moist (not wet) earth, then an inch layer of the root cuttings, a thin layer of earth again, then cuttings until the box is full. If the cellar is cool and free from frost, the cuttings may be kept there until spring; or the boxes containing them can be buried so deeply on a dry knoll in a garden as to be below frost. Leaves piled above them ensure safety. Make sure that the boxes are buried where no water can collect either on or beneath the surface. Before new roots can be made by a cutting, a whitish excrescence appears at both its ends, called the callus, and from this the rootlets start out. This essential process goes on throughout the winter, and therefore the advantage of making cuttings in the fall. Occasionally, in the fall, we may obtain a variety that we are anxious to increase, in which case some of the roots may be taken off for cuttings before setting out the plants.

These little root-slips may be sown, as one would sow peas, early in the spring as soon as the ground is dry enough to work. A plot of rich, moist land should be chosen, and the soil made mellow and fine, as if for seed; drills should then be opened eighteen inches apart, two inches deep on heavy land, and three inches deep on light. The cuttings must now be dropped three inches from each other in the little furrows, the ground levelled over them and firmed, which is best done by walking on a board laid on the covered drill, or else by the use of a garden roller. If the entire cutting-bed were well sprinkled with fine compost, and then covered so lightly--from one quarter to half an inch--with a mulch of straw that the shoots could come through it without hindrance, scarcely a cutting would fail. Unfailing moisture, without wetness, is what a cutting requires.

Roots may be divided into half-inch bits, if forced under gla.s.s, and in this way nurserymen often speedily provide themselves with large stocks of very scarce varieties. The cuttings are placed in boxes of sand until the callus forms, and little buds appear on the surface of the roots, for which processes about five weeks are required. They are then sown in shallow boxes containing about three inches of soil, formed of equal parts of sand and decayed leaves, and subjected to the heat of the green-house. When they have formed plants from three to five inches high, they may be potted, if very valuable; or, if the weather is warm enough, they can be transplanted at once into the open nursery-bed, as one would a strawberry plant. I have set out many thousands in this way, only aiming to keep a little earth clinging to the roots as I took them from the shallow box. Plants grown from cuttings are usually regarded as the best; but if a sucker plant is taken up with fibrous roots, 1 should regard it as equally good.

If we wish to try our fortune in originating new varieties, we gather the largest and earliest berries, dry them, and plant the seeds the following spring; or we may separate the seeds from the pulp by expressing it and mixing them with dry sand, until they are in a condition to be sown evenly in a sheltered place at once. As with strawberries, they should be raked lightly into moist, rich soil, the surface of which should not be allowed to become dry and hard. The probabilities are that they will germinate early in the spring and produce canes strong enough to bear the second year. If the seed is from a kind that can not endure frost, the young plant should receive thorough winter protection. There is nothing better than a covering of earth. In the spring of the second year, cut the young plant down to the ground, and it will send up a strong, vigorous cane, whose appearance and fruit will give a fair suggestion of its value the third year. Do not be sure of a prize, even though the berries are superb and the new variety starts off most vigorously. Let me give a bit of experience. In a fine old garden, located in the centre of the city of Newburgh, N. Y., my attention was attracted by the fruit of a raspberry bush whose roots were so interlaced with those of a grapevine that they could not be separated. It scarcely seemed to have a fair chance to live at all, and yet it was loaded with the largest and most delicious red raspberries that I had then ever seen. It was evidently a chance, and very distinct seedling. I obtained from Mr. T. H. Roe, the proprietor of the garden, permission to propagate the variety, and in the autumn removed a number of the canes to my place at Cornwall. My first object was to learn whether it was hardy, and therefore not the slightest protection was given the canes at Newburgh, nor even to those removed to my own place, some of which were left four feet high for the sake of this test. The winter that followed was one of the severest known; the mercury sank to 30 degrees below zero, but not a plant at either locality was injured; and in the old garden a cane fourteen feet long, that rested on the grape-arbor, was alive to the tip, and in July was loaded with the most beautiful fruit I had ever seen. It was un-injured by the test of another winter, and all who saw and tasted the fruit were enthusiastic in its praise. The Ma.s.sachusetts Horticultural Society awarded it their first premium, and Mr. Charles Downing said it was the finest red raspberry he had ever seen. The veteran horticulturist, Mr. Wm. Parry, who has had between forty and fifty years of experience in small fruits, visited my place that summer. The bushes he saw had never received any protection, and had already been three weeks in bearing, but they were still full of fruit.

After picking several berries that measured plump three inches in circ.u.mference, he said, quietly, "Put me down for 500 plants." In no other way could he have stated his favorable opinion more emphatically.

It was as delicious as it was large and beautiful, and surely I was reasonable in expecting for it a brilliant future. In my faith I planted it largely myself, expecting to make it my main dependence as a market berry. But in August of that year many of the canes lost their foliage. Those that thus suffered were not entirely hardy the following winter. It was eventually made clear that it belonged to the tender _Rubus Idoeua_ cla.s.s, and, therefore, was not adapted to general cultivation, especially on light soils, and under sunny skies. As I have shown, its start was so full of vigor and promise that it won the favor and confidence of the horticultural veterans; but it suddenly manifested lack of stamina and st.u.r.dy persistence in well-doing. And this is just the trouble which every experienced propagator dreads.

Only after years of test and trial in many localities can he be a.s.sured that his seedling may become a standard variety.

If this chance seedling, the Pride of the Hudson, is given a moist soil in some half-shady location, it will yield fruit that will delight the amateur's heart, but, like Brinkle's Orange, which it resembles in flavor, only amateurs will give it the petting it requires.

As suggested when treating the strawberry, so in seeking to originate new varieties of raspberries, our aim should be to develop our hardy native species, the _R. Strigosus_, and if we employ the _R. Idoeus_ cla.s.s for parentage on one side, seek its most vigorous representatives, such as the Belle de Fontenay and Franconia.

CHOICE OF LAND--ITS PREPARATION--PLANTING

All that has been said about the thorough preparation of the soil for strawberries, by drainage, deep plowing, trenching, etc., applies to raspberries, but differences should be noted in respect to fertilizers.

Land can scarcely be made too rich for any variety of strawberries, but certain strong-growing raspberries, like the Cuthbert, Herstine, and Turner, should not be over-fertilized. Some kinds demand good, clean culture, rather than a richness that would cause too great a growth of cane and foliage. In contrast, the feebler growing kinds, like the Brandywine, and most of the foreign varieties, require abundance of manure. Muck, sweetened by lime and frost is one of the simplest and best; but anything will answer that is not too full of heat and ferment. Like the strawberry, the raspberry needs cool manures that have "staying" qualities. Unlike the former fruit, however, the raspberry does well in partial shade, such as that furnished by the northern side of a fence, hedge, etc., by a pear or even apple orchard, if the trees still permit wide intervals of open sky. The red varieties, especially those of the foreign types much prefer moist, heavy soils; but the black-caps do quite as well on light ground, if moisture can be maintained. The latter, also, can be grown farther south than any other species, but below the lat.i.tude of New York, those containing foreign elements begin to fail rapidly, until, at last, a point is reached where even the most vigorous native red varieties refuse to live. If the climate, however, is tempered by height above the sea, as in the mountains of Georgia, they will thrive abundantly.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SPRING AND FALL PLANTS]

I prefer fall planting for raspberries, especially in southern lat.i.tudes, for these reasons: At the points where the roots branch (see Fig. A) are buds which make the future stems or canes. In the fall, these are dormant, small, and not easily broken off, as in Fig. B; but they start early in spring, and if planting is delayed, these become so long and brittle that the utmost care can scarcely save them, If rubbed off, the development of good bearing canes is often deferred a year, although the plants may live and fill the ground with roots. The more growth a raspberry plant has made when set out in spring, the greater the probability that it will receive a check, from which it will never recover.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WINTER PROTECTION OF NEWLY SET PLANTS]

I have often planted in May and June, successfully, by taking up the young suckers when from six inches to a foot high, and setting them where they are to grow. Immediately on taking them up, I cut them back so that only one or two laches of the green cane is left, and thus the roots are not taxed to sustain wood and foliage beyond their power.

This can often be done to advantage, when the plants are on one's own place, and in moist, cloudy weather. My preference, however, is to plant the latter part of October and through November, in well-prepared and enriched land. The holes are made quite deep and large, and the bottom filled with good surface soil. If possible, before planting, plow and cross-plow deeply, and have a subsoiler follow in each furrow.

It should be remembered that we are preparing for a crop which may occupy the land for ten or fifteen years, and plants will suffer from every drought if set immediately on a hard subsoil. On heavy land, I set the plants one inch deeper than they were before; on light soils two or three inches deeper. I cut the canes off six inches above the surface (see Fig. C); for leaving long canes is often ruinous, and a plant is frequently two or three years in recovering from the strain of trying to produce fruit the first year. The whole strength of the roots should go toward producing bearing canes for the season following; and to stimulate such growth, I throw directly on the hill one or two shovelfuls of finely rotted compost and then mound the earth over the hill until the cane is wholly covered (as in Fig. D). This prevents all injury from the winter's cold. When severe frosts are over, the mound is levelled down again. Under this system, I rarely lose plants, and usually find that double growth is made compared with those set _late_ in spring. I have always succeeded well, however, in _early_ spring planting; and well to the north, this is, perhaps, the safer season.

With the exception of mounding the earth over the hill, plant in March or April as I have already directed.

CULTIVATION

In cultivation, keep the ground level; do not let it become banked up against the hills, as is often the case, especially with those tender varieties that are covered with earth every winter. Keep the surface clean and mellow by the use of the cultivator and hoe. With the exception of from four to six canes in the hill, treat all suckers as weeds, cutting them down while they are little, before they have sucked half the life out of the bearing hill. Put a shovelful or two of good compost--any fertilizer is better than none--around the hills or along the rows, late in the fall, and work it lightly in with a fork if there is time. The autumn and winter rains will carry it down to the roots, giving almost double vigor and fruitfulness the following season. If the top-dressing is neglected in the autumn, be sure to give it as early in the spring as possible, and work it down toward the roots.

Bone-dust, ashes, poudrette, barnyard manure, and muck with lime can be used alternate years, so as to give variety of plant food, and a plantation thus sustained can be kept twenty years or more; but under the usual culture, vigor begins to fail after the eighth or tenth season. The first tendency of most varieties of newly set red raspberries is to sucker immoderately; but this gradually declines, even with the most rampant, and under good culture the fruiting qualities improve.

In dry weather the fork should not be used during the growing or bearing season. The turning down of a stratum of dry, hot soil next to the roots must cause a sudden check and injury from which only a soaking rain can bring full relief. But in moist weather, and periods preceding and following the blossoming and fruiting season, I have often used the fork to advantage, especially if there is a sod of short, succulent weeds to be turned under as a green crop. If the ground between the hills was stirred frequently with an iron garden-rake, the weeds would not have a chance to start. This is by far the best and cheapest way of maintaining our part in the unceasing conflict with vegetable evil. An Irish bull hits the truth exactly: the best way to fight weeds is to have none to fight; and raking the ground over on a sunny day, about once a week, destroys them when they are as yet but germinating seeds. At the same time it opens the pores of the earth, as a physiologist might express himself. Unfailing moisture is maintained, air, light, and heat are introduced to the roots in accordance with Nature's taste, and the whole strength of the mellow soil goes to produce only that which is useful. But this teaching is like the familiar and sound advice, "Form no bad habits." We do form them; the weeds do get the start of us; and therefore, as a practical fact, the old moral and physical struggle must go on until the end of time.

CHAPTER XX

RASPBERRIES--PRUNING--STAKING--MULCHING--WINTER PROTECTION, ETC.

Usually, there is no pruning either in the field or the garden beyond the cutting out of the old canes and the shortening in of the new growth. There is a difference of opinion as to whether the old canes should be cut out immediately after fruiting, or left to natural decay, and removed the following fall or spring. I prefer the former course.

It certainly is neater, and I think I have seen increased growth in the young canes, for which more room is made, and to whose support the roots can give their whole strength. The new growth can make foliage fast enough to develop the roots; still, I have not experimented carefully, and so cannot speak accurately. We see summer pruning often advocated on paper, but I have rarely met it in practice. If carefully done at the proper season, however, much can be accomplished by it in the way of making strong, stocky plants, capable of standing alone--plants full of lateral branches, like little trees, that will be loaded with fruit. But this summer pinching back must be commenced early, while the new, succulent growth is under full headway, and continued through the busiest season, when strawberries are ripe and harvest is beginning. It should not be done after the cane has practically made its growth, or else the buds that ought to remain dormant until the following season are started into a late and feeble growth that does not ripen before the advent of early frosts. Few have time for pruning in May or June. If they have, let them try it by all means, especially on the black-cap species. It does not require so much time as it does prompt action at the proper period of growth. In the garden, summer pinching can transform a raspberry bush into an ornamental shrub as beautiful as useful. It is much better adapted to the hardier varieties than to those that must be bent down and covered with earth. With the _R. Occidentalis_ species, summer pinching would always pay well. The best I can do, usually, with the red varieties, is to prune in November and March; it should be done before the buds develop. Unless early fruit is wanted, I believe in cutting back heroically. Nature once gave me a very useful hint. One very cold winter, a row of Clarke raspberries was left unprotected. The canes were four or five feet high, but were killed down to the snow-level, or within eighteen inches of the ground; but from what was left uninjured, we had as many and far finer berries than were gathered from other rows where the canes had been left their full length and protected by a covering of earth. The fruit was later, however. I would remind careful observers of the raspberry how often buds on canes that have been broken off or cut away back develop into long sprays, enormously fruitful of the largest berries. I have counted fifty, and even eighty, berries on a branch that had grown from a single bud within one or two feet of the ground. These lower buds often do not start at all when the canes are left their full, or nearly their full length. In the latter case the fruit ripens much earlier and more together; and since an early crop, though inferior in quality and quant.i.ty, may be more valuable than a late one, the fruit grower often objects to pruning.

But in the garden, while the canes of some early kinds are left their full length, I would recommend that others, especially those of the later varieties, be cut back one-half. Even for market purposes I believe that the superb fruit resulting from such pruning would bring more money in most instances. At any rate, the season of bearing would be greatly prolonged.

_Mulching_ on a large scale would not pay in most localities. In regions where salt hay, flags, etc., can be cut in abundance, or where straw is so plenty as to be of little value, it no doubt could be applied profitably. On Staten Island I have seen large patches mulched with salt hay. The canes were unstaked, and many of them bent over on the clean hay with their burden of fruit. When there are no stakes or other support used, the berries certainly should be kept from contact with the soil. The chief advantage of the mulch, however, is in the preservation of moisture. When it is given freely, all the fruit perfects, and in a much longer succession. The weeds and suckers are kept down, and the patch has a neat appearance. Moreover, mulching prevents the foliage from burning, and enables the gardener to grow successfully the finer varieties further to the south and on light soils. In keeping down the weeds through the long summer, a mulch of leaves, straw, or any coa.r.s.e litter, is often far less costly than would be the labor required.

_Staking_ raspberries is undoubtedly the best, simplest, and cheapest method of supporting the canes of most varieties and in most localities. I agree with the view taken by Mr. A. S. Fuller. "Chestnut stakes," he writes, "five feet long and two or three inches in diameter, made from large trees, cost me less than two cents each, and my location is within twenty miles of New York City, where timber of all kinds commands a large price. I can not afford to grow raspberries without staking, because every stake will save on an average ten cents'

worth of fruit, and, in many instances, three times that amount." Of course, split chestnut stakes look the neatest and last the longest; but a raspberry bush is not fastidious, and I utilize old bean-poles, limbs of trees--anything that keeps the canes from sprawling in the dirt with their delicate fruit. Thus, in many instances, the stakes will cost little more than a boy's labor in preparing them, and they can be of various lengths, according to the height of our canes. As they become too much decayed for further use, they make a cheery blaze on the hearth during the early autumn evenings. There are stocky growing varieties, like the Cuthbert, Turner, Herstine and others, that by summer pruning or vigorous cutting back would be self-supporting, if not too much exposed to high winds. The question is a very practical one, and should be decided largely by experience and the grower's locality. There are fields and regions in which gales, and especially thunder-gusts, would prostrate into the dirt the stoutest bushes that could be formed by summer pruning, breaking down canes heavy with green and ripe fruit. In saving a penny stake, a bit of string, and the moment required for tying, one might be made to feel, after a July storm, that he had been too thrifty. As far as my experience and observation go, I would either stake _all_ my bushes that stood separately and singly, or else would grow them in a loose, continuous, bushy row, and keep the fruit clean by some kind of mulch. Splashed, muddy berries are not fit either to eat or to sell.

[Ill.u.s.tration: a. Canes snugly tied. b. Canes improperly tied. RIGHT AND WRONG WAYS OF TYING CANES]

In many localities, however, stakes are dispensed with. In the garden, wires, fastened to posts, are occasionally stretched along the rows, and the canes tied to these. The method in this section, however, is to insert stakes firmly in the hill, by means of a pointed crowbar, and the canes are tied to them as early in spring as possible. Unless watched, the boys who do the tying persist in leaving the upper cords of the canes loose. These unsupported ends, when weighted with fruit and foliage, break, of course. The canes should be snugly tied their whole length. If bushes made stocky by summer pruning are supported, let the stake be inserted on the side opposite that from which heavy winds are expected.

WINTER PROTECTION--TAKING UP PLANTS FOR SPRING USE--STORING THEM

Nearly all foreign varieties and their seedlings need winter protection, or are the better for it, north of the lat.i.tude of New York City. Many of the hardier kinds, like the Herstine and Clarke, will usually survive if bent over and kept close to the earth by the weight of poles or a shovelful or two of soil; but all of the Antwerp cla.s.s need to be entirely covered.