the useless sprouts on the larger limbs.  Before leaving the city I had provided myself with such tools as I was sure I should need; and finding a ladder under a shed, I attacked the trees vigorously.  The wind had almost died out, and I knew I must make the most of all still days in this gusty month.  After playing around for a time, Winnie and Bobsey concluded that gathering and piling up my prunings would be as good fun as anything else; and so I had helpers again.

By the middle of the afternoon Mr. Jones appeared, and I was glad to see him, for there were some kinds of work about which I wanted his advice.  At one end of the garden were several rows of blackcap raspberry bushes, which had grown into an awful snarl.  The old canes that had borne fruit the previous season were still standing, ragged and unsightly; the new stalks that would bear the coming season sprawled in every direction; and I had found that many tips of the branches had grown fast in the ground.  I took my neighbor to see this briery wilderness, and asked his advice.

“Have you got a pair of pruning-nippers?” he asked.

Before going to the house to get them, I blew a shrill whistle to summon Merton, for I wished him also to hear all that Mr. Jones might say.  I carried a little metallic whistle one blast on which was for Merton, two for Winnie, and three for Bobsey.  When they heard this call they were to come as fast as their feet could carry them.

Taking the nippers, Mr. Jones snipped off from one-third to one-half the length of the branches from one of the bushes and cut out the old dead cane.

“I raise these berries myself for home use,” he said; “and I can tell you they go nice with milk for a July supper.  You see, after taking off so much from these long branches the canes stand straight up, and will be self-supporting, no matter how many berries they bear; but here and there’s a bush that has grown slant-wise, or is broken off.  Now, if I was you, I’d take a crow-bar ‘n’ make a hole ‘longside these weakly and slantin’ fellers, put in a stake, and tie ’em up strong.  Then, soon as the frost yields, if you’ll get out the grass and weeds that’s started among ’em, you’ll have a dozen bushel or more of marketable berries from this ’ere wilderness, as you call it.  Give Merton a pair of old gloves, and he can do most of the job.  Every tip that’s fast in the ground is a new plant.  If you want to set out another patch, I’ll show you how later on.”

“I think I know pretty nearly how to do that.”

“Yes, yes, I know.  Books are a help, I s’pose, but after you’ve seen one plant set out right, you’ll know more than if you’d ‘a’ read a month.”

“Well, now that you’re here, Mr. Jones, I’m going to make the most of you.  How about those other raspberries off to the southeast of the house?”

“Those are red ones.  Let’s take a look at ’em.”

Having reached the patch, we found almost as bad a tangle as in the blackcap patch, except that the canes were more upright in their growth and less full of spines or briers.