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.

A rust similar to that which attacks the black-cap is almost the only disease we have to contend with.  The remedy is the same—­ extirpation of the plant, root and branch.

After testing a great many kinds, I recommend the three following varieties, ripening in succession for the family—­the Early Harvest, Snyder, and Kittatinny.  These all produce rich, high-flavored berries, and, under the treatment suggested, will prove hardy in nearly all localities.  This fruit is not ripe as soon as it is black, and it is rarely left on the bushes until the hard core in the centre is mellowed by complete maturity.  I have found that berries picked in the evening and stood in a cool place were in excellent condition for breakfast.  To have them in perfection, however, they must be so ripe as to drop into the basket at the slightest touch; then, as Donald Mitchell says, they are “bloated bubbles of forest honey.”

I fancy the reader is as impatient to reach the strawberry as I am myself.  “Doubtless God could have made a better berry”—­but I forbear.  This saying has been quoted by the greater part of the human race, and attributed to nearly every prominent man, from Adam to Mr. Beecher.  There are said to be unfortunates whom the strawberry poisons.  The majority of us feel as if we could attain Methuselah’s age if we had nothing worse to contend with.  Praising the strawberry is like “painting the lily;” therefore let us give our attention at once to the essential details of its successful culture.