I06 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



The pruning of both gooseberries and currants should be 

 very severe, the old wood being taken out. As most of the 

 varieties produce their very best fruit on the two-year-old wood, 

 anything over three years old should be cut off. We are so 

 apt to think a currant or gooseberry goes by in a very short 

 time. That is not true if we keep out the old wood. I have 

 bushes ten years old now and I think they are good for ten 

 years more, by the way they look now. And we must not let 

 grass, or sod, or heavy weeds grow up around them to take 

 their vigor or in any way rob them. They need careful culti- 

 vation, clean cultivation, and there is no reason why they should 

 not last a great many years. The reason so many currant and 

 gooseberry plants run out is the fact that the grass has been 

 allowed to grow in around them. 



The same thing that was spoken of with regard to other small 

 fruits holds true in marketing gooseberries and currants. They 

 should be marketed in clean, attractive packages. Grow the 

 large cherry variety of currant rather than the old fashioned 

 Dutch varieties. The latter are so small no one cares for them 

 for eating. Such varieties in the currant as Fay's, Cherry, 

 Wilder and Perfection are the ones to grow. If you want 

 splendid fruit for your garden, grow some of the white vari- 

 eties. Some of them are very excellent. They are not as 

 acid as the red ones, but very splendid eating for table use. 

 I think there is no better summer fruit than a combination of 

 currants and raspberries; thoroughly ripe currants and rasp- 

 berries together on a hot day are the most refreshing of our 

 summer fruits. I think we ought to go more extensively into 

 this small fruit business, not so much perhaps as a commercial 

 proposition at present, though working toward that end, but 

 planting them in our gardens for our own home fruit and in 

 that way getting rid of some of the poor fruit trash we get in 

 the market. 



I thank you for your attention. 



Mr. Merrili. oe Auburn : I would like to ask Mr. Wheeler 

 how near together he sets his strawberry plants in the hill 

 system. 



Mr. Wheeler : Most of the plants are set in four rows 14 

 inches apart each way in the bed. And then there is a space 

 of three feet between the beds which is used for a path and to 



