"I prefer fall planting, which may be done as late as they can be put in. I have set them the last day of October, without losing one. I plant them four feet apart, but five would be better, and tie the canes, when grown, to stakes four and a half feet high.[Footnote: "The following fall, of course; when planted, the canes are cut back, so as to be only six inches above ground.">[ Sometimes I have laid them down, and sometimes have tied up the young canes to the stakes in the fall, and I find but little difference. They always bear, and are never winter-killed.
"As to blackberries, I have but little experience. That blackberries will succeed here, some canes I saw 15th August, in a friend's garden, some two miles from my house, afford ample proof. They were loaded with clusters of magnificent, large, luscious fruit, and were equally prolific last year. My friend told me he was obliged to give them. very warm protection—literally bury them in straw and earth.
"Red and black currants grow well with us, under ordinary treatment. Gooseberries, however, are liable to mildew; that is, the English varieties. The native hybrids, of course, are safe enough. Still, under some conditions, I have seen the English varieties without a touch of mildew. My English varieties mildewed badly this summer, and the man from whom I got them says that he has never seen it in his garden, not far from me. I went to see his bushes, and there was not a sign of mildew affecting his gooseberries, which were very large and fine."
CHAPTER XXXII
A FEW RULES AND MAXIMS
Suggestive experiences and the methods of successful men are usually far more helpful than a system of rules. Nevertheless, I have thought that some concise maxims and formulas would be of use to those not yet well versed in the labors of a fruit farm. Such rules, also, may be of service to the unfortunates who are dependent on the "hired man," since they can be copied and given to this minister of destiny whose hands work out our weal or woe so largely. There are two types of workmen that are incorrigible. The one slashes away with his haphazard hoe, while he looks and talks in another direction. His tongue, at least, is rarely idle, and his curiosity awakes when he does. If any one or anything goes by, he must watch it while in sight and then comment and expectorate. He is not only versed in all the coarse gossip concerning his neighbors, but also can talk by the hour of the short-comings of even their horses and dogs. The virtues of man or beast, however, make but little impression on what answers in his organism for a mind. That which is good, wholesome, and refined interests him no more than strawberries would a buzzard. To the degree that he is active, he usually makes havoc. The weeds do not suffer seriously from his efforts, but if you have a few choice plants, a single specimen or two of something unpurchasable and rare, or a seedling that you dream may have a future, the probabilities are that, unless watched and warned, he will extirpate them utterly. It rarely happens that you can teach this type of man better things. The leopard may change his spots and the Ethiopian his skin, but this man—though resembling both outwardly, through his uncleanliness—never changes. His blunders, garrulity, and brainless labor, however, would transform Izaak Walton himself into a dragon of irritability. The effort to reform such a man would be heroic, indeed, but let those who enter upon such a task give their whole souls to it, and not attempt gardening at the same time—unless the garden is maintained for the sake of the man, and they, in their zeal, approach Titania in her midsummer-night's madness, when she bade her attendant fairies to "feed" the "translated" weaver—
"With apricocks and dewberries,
With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries."
This degenerate descendant of Bottom, however, needs no such considerate attention; he will help himself to the choicest and rarest.
Scarcely better than the type portrayed above is the deliberate workman, who can soon show you how easy it is to spend two dollars in order to make one. His wages—the one thing he is prompt about—will leave little margin of profit on the berries that he has packed, although, by reason of his ancient pipe, they may outrank all the fruit in the market. This man never walks nor runs, no matter how great the emergency and press of work; he merely jogs around, and picks a raspberry as he would pry out a bowlder. He does his work fairly well, usually; but the fact that it would require a hundred such men to care for a small place causes not the slightest solicitude. He would smoke just as stolidly and complacently after bringing wreck and ruin to a dozen employers.
Men of these types are as disastrous on a fruit farm as the Lachnosterna or currant worm. Unless the reader has far more native goodness and acquired grace than the writer, he had better dismiss them speedily, or his feelings may resemble those that Sam Jubilee described on previously. I have given two extreme examples, but there are also gradations of these characters, who had better find employment from those requiring "hands" only. Successful work on a fruit farm, or in a garden, requires a quick brain, a keen eye, a brisk step and a deft hand. Many of its labors are light, and no profit can follow unless they are performed with despatch, at the right time and in the right way.