Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-11-20


soil, every imaginable mixture was expert
mentally employed; but it was soon found
that ordinary garden loan was an utter
failure, the little plants sprouted in it soon
perishing. What the blueberries really
wanted, apparently, was pure peat, with the
adniXture of a small amount of sand.
In this mixture they fourished wonder
fully, developing into robust plants twenty
seven inches high at twelve months from
termination. These bushes were exceed
ingly hardy, and passed the winter in good
condition out of doors. In the hot summer
time, however, it was found desirable to give
them partial shade, by an arrangement of
Stats with two-inch spaces between. The
adoption of this expedient made the growth
of the plants continuous through the sum-
mer and early fall, whereas in a wild state
the BURBERRY stops growing in early summer,
the tips of its twigs whitening. Under the
slat shade the tips did not wither, and there
was no general stopping of growth until Sep
TENDER, while many of the bushes continued
to grow through that month. This is point
of obvious Importance to the BURBERRY gar
dener of the future.
Experimenting for Big Berries
EXPERIMENTS in blueberry culture out
- of doors have not been carried far as
yet. They have begun, however at Green
field, New Hampshire, at Kingston, Rhode
Island, and at Lanham, Maryland; the
object in view being the propagation of
size. Some seed has been obtained from
Oregon, where the lucky discovery was
made of blueberries measuring over five
eighths of an inch in diameter.
The common swamp BURBERRY has three
we'll marked forms, which are regarded by
some botanists as distinct species, and these
latter vary much. There is great oppor-
tunity for selection for size, color, flavor, and
time of ripening; and there should be no
difficulty in producing new varieties by
breeding, inasmuch as practicable method
of crossing by artificial pollination has al
ready been devised by experts of the Plant
Bureau. To propagate the BURBERRY by
cuttings from wild bushes is exceedingly
easy; hundreds, or even thousands, of slips
being obtainable at one time from single
plant of exceptional excellence.
Says Mr.. Coville, ITO those desiring to
experiment with the field culture of the
swamp BURBERRY, whether with wild plants,
seedlings or plants grown from cuttings,
two modes of treatment are suggested, both
deduced from experiments already made.
The first method, suited to upland soils, is
to set the plants in trenches or separate holes
in well rotted peat at least foot in depth,
and mulch the surface well either with
leaves or with clean sand. The excavations
must provide ample space for the new
growth of the roots, and the soil-in which
the holes or trenches are situated should
be such as to provide good drainage"
Peatboe Is the Place
THE second method is to set out the
plants in a peatbog, after the bog has
been drained, turfed, and deeply mulched
with sand; the same treatment, in a word,
as that employed in cranberry culture ex-
cept that no special provision need be made
for flooding the bog. The BURBERRY, by the
way, is closely related to the cranberry. An
advantage it has over the latter, from the
cultural viewpoint, is that it does not re-
quire wedding, which is the principal item of
expense in cranberry growing, often coming
to fifty dollars or more an acre in a season.
The cranberry bog must be kept under a
blanket of ice during cold months, to prevent
the plants from freezing to death "a curious
paradox and should be flooded in fall to
repel frost and in spring to kill insects, re-
quirement usually expensive, because water
for the purpose has to beimpoundedb by a DAM
The swamp BURBERRY sometimes grows