The accompanying figures represent the wood of the preceding summer's growth.

The portion with buds, marked a a, is from the upper part of the shoot; that with buds, marked b b, is taken from the lower part of the shoot or cane. The buds a a, can scarcely be termed blossom-buds, inasmuch as they do not contain the rudiments of flowers like the blossom-buds of larger fruit; but each of them possesses the power of producing a branchlet, and on this blossom-buds are formed. The buds b b, on the lower part of the cane, do not generally push unless the upper have been cut away, and then the lower are stimulated, producing, however, shoots and fruit later in the season than those obtained from the buds a a. Advantage has been sometimes taken of this, to procure a succession of fruit in autumn.

Raspberry shoots, or canes, growing up in one summer, and producing fruit in the next, and then dying to the ground, a succession having, meantime, sprung up. The pruning usually consists in the obvious operation of cutting away all the dead wood - that which has borne fruit; and, in the shortening that which is alive, thinning the canes so as to leave three, four, five, or six, from a plant, according to its strength.

An improvement may, however, be effected on this general mode. As the finest and best of these fruits are, in all oases, the produce of strong and well-ripened canes, it becomes necessary that the shoots should have every advantage afforded them. This may readily be effected by causing all the former year's canes to be out down to the ground as soon as they have produced their crop, instead of allowing them to stand till the winter or spring; this removes an unnecessary incumbrance, and, at a season when sun and air are of infinite importance to the young canes, and, consequently, to the succeeding crop.

In autumn, or the early part of winter, the young canes should be shortened to about four-fifths of their original height, or to the place where the growth of the upper part of the shoot forms a sort of bending or twisting. They may then be either tied to stakes or arched, by tying their tips to those of the adjoining plant. When a late succession of fruit is desired, some plants may have all their shoots cut back to within a few inches of the ground.