98 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



enough to become soft. As tliey are generally sold by weight, — and any 

 fruit increases greatly in weight during the last days of ripening, — 

 we aim to pick as late as possible and pick green. In picking we fur- 

 nish pickers cheap leather gloves and low crates. They place the crates 

 underneath the branches and strip off the fruit. This mixture of fruit 

 and leaves is then put through the fanning mill, and each picker credited 

 with one-half cent per pound for their fruit. An industrious boy will 

 earn fairly good wages at this rate. A foreman has charge of the gang 

 of pickers, and inspects each picked bush, before assigning the picker to 

 a new one. From one lot of 2,000 plants, 1.65 acres, in their fourth 

 season, we picked last season 116 bushels, which sold for $290. Just 

 10 per cent was paid for picking. We plant both Houghton and Down- 

 ing, and find them both productive and satisfactory. 



In currants we have tried many varieties of the red sorts. We do 

 not like the Fay's Prolific, but have lately planted Wilder, London 

 Market, Prince Albert and some Pomona. Victoria is an old standby 

 with us but does not grow as large as the other sorts mentioned. 



We have a few white currants, but there is scarcely any demand for 

 them. Black currants sell at a large price, but do not yield enough to 

 be very profitable. If one could get a black currant which would yield 

 heavily and be otherwise desirable, there would be money in it. 



The currants are generally picked in quart boxes, although if we sell 

 at the canneries, they go, by the pound. The price of late years has 

 been less than for gooseberries. There is a grooving demand for either 

 class of fruit. They require but one picking in a season, and not so 

 much pruning or care as do raspberries, blackberries and other small 

 fruits. A plantation once started, does not require replanting, as soon 

 as do some other small fruits. We have a patch of Houghton goose- 

 berries planted in 1894, which is bearing very productively, and sold at 

 the same prices as Downings, the past season. 



Now Gentlemen, — I do not want you to go home and proceed to tear 

 out your bearing apple and peach orchards, in order to make a planta- 

 tion of gooseberries and currants. I do not advise it, — but with right 

 conditions of soil and location and market,— the raising of gooseberries 

 and currants may well be classed as a splendid and profitable way of 

 paying expenses during the development of tree fruits, and with us a 

 very satisfactory crop in itself. 



DISCUSSION. 



A Member — Do you trim these gooseberries like other fruit? 



Mr. Munson — Gooseberries grow on two-year-old and three-year-old 

 wood. We prune some. The branches will get broken down by driving 

 over with spray pump, and the branches that seem to be growing out 

 we cut out. 



A Member— Can you manage to keep the sod from among the mulch? 



Mr. Munson— Yes. We can do it all right, but we get after it very 

 early in the spring with a cultivator. The gooseberry and currant 

 growth starts so early in the spring that one should get right after it as 

 soon as possible. If the cultivation is neglected during the first few 

 weeks, the new growth is so rapid that there is considerable difficulty in 

 weeding it out. Sometimes mildew comes on the leaves after the fruit 



