The Dewberry

The dewberry differs from the blackberry mainly in its trailing habit. The fruit is usually earlier than the blackberries, and thus prolongs the black-berry season. Dewberries are generally tied to stakes or trellises so as to facilitate cultivation. In the fall, the cords are cut and the canes allowed to lie on the ground during the winter. Management is otherwise the same as for blackberries and rasp-berries. The Lucretia is the leading variety. (See Raspberry.)

” In planting and cultivating the dewberry,” says S. H. Strange of Cumberland county, North Carolina, ” the land should not be too stiff. We prefer a rather sandy land, though not too poor. The land should be well plowed and harrowed. Mark off the rows 4 by 8 feet, making the furrows about 4 inches deep. We prefer to set the roots in March. Put the plant in the checks and cover about 2 inches deep and apply 300 pounds fertilizer to the acre, or stable manure, if you have it, at the rate of a shovelful to the hill. This will give you vine or cane enough. Cultivate as level as possible and keep clean all the summer. The posts and wire can be put up in the winter, posts set 40 feet apart. Care should be taken to have the line of posts run exactly with the line or row of dewberries, so the wire when stretched from post to post will be directly over the vines. The vines or canes should be tied up on the wire the latter part of March, one year after they are planted. This should be done very carefully, the hills barred off and fertilizer applied at the rate of Soo to 1,500 pounds an acre. Applying the fertilizer with a disk drill is a good way. Any high-grade fertilizer will do that will analyze 3 per cent ammonia, 12 per cent phosphoric acid, and io per cent potash. I give these general out-lines, but a man must be governed by local conditions, study his land and feed it accordingly and watch results.”