After increasing my plantation, as I had by this time, I found I required more help.  Ability in managing my helpers was a necessity.  My experience with them in the field was that when I set them to hoeing a newly set raspberry field if not watched they would destroy half the roots, loosening the little hold the struggling plants had, by cutting close and hoeing the soil away from the roots.  I have seen supposedly intelligent men plowing alongside of the plants, thinking they were doing their work so much more thoroughly, but if they would dig up one plant before plowing and another after, they would readily see the results of their plowing.

A born farmer assumes that everybody knows how to handle a hoe or a plow, but why should they, not having had practical experience?  When put to work such as hoeing, they would make the most outlandish motions with the hoe, often destroying valuable plants, not being able to distinguish them from the weeds.  Though they may labor just as hard, they cannot possibly accomplish as much as the expert who can skillfully whirl a hoe around a plant in such a manner as to remove every weed and yet not injure the plant in the least.  In other words, the best efforts of the novice cannot possibly bring the results so easily accomplished by the more skillful laborer.  Except in a few cases, I have found inexperienced help a discouragement.

In hiring pickers who had to come quite far each morning, I found that if the morning had been wet and rainy, but had later turned out to be a nice day, they would not come at all.  The sun coming out after these showers would cause the berries to become over-ripe and to drop from the bushes, or if still on the bush would be too ripe for shipping.  These same pickers, when berries were scarce, would rush through the rows, merely picking the biggest and those most easily acquired.

Having tried pickers as mentioned, I decided that to get pickers from the city and board them would be the better plan.  While they seemed to work more for the pleasure connected with life on the farm than with the idea of making money, yet after a little training and a few rules, most of them would make splendid pickers, and my berries being carefully picked and in first class condition, would readily sell to the best trade.

Leaving the subject of berries and berry picking, I will dwell briefly on my experience with the winter covering of the plants.  At first I would cover the canes in an arch-like manner, which would require more than 18 inches of soil to cover them, and it was necessary to shovel much by hand.  In the spring I found it quite a task to remove all this soil and get it back in place between the rows.  After I learned to cover them properly, that is flat on the ground, I found it required but a small amount of soil to cover them, and in the spring it was only necessary to use a fork to remove the covering, and with a little lift they were ready to start growth again.