EEPORT OF BVTES COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIEIY. 139 



awful. If there can be a few times ia the course of the year some- 

 thing which, for a few days, that will draw the jad«d mind from the 

 regular routine of every day duties, it would save ten years to life. 

 Yet the nature of this something is decisive. What can be a better an- 

 tidote (smooth and easy to take) than the exhibition of a large and 

 choice collection of beautiful ripe fruits? The collection made by 

 this society at our last monthly meeting for the World's Exposition at 

 New Orleans was added to and somewhat improved before it was sent 

 away. The few who saw it viewed it with mingled wonder and pleas- 

 ure and surprise. 



THE CURRANT IN SOUTHWEST MISSOURI. 



BY HENRY SPEARS. 



In preparing a short paper for this meeting, I have chosen as my 

 subject my boyhood friend, the much neglected fruit, the currant; a 

 Iruit that is worthy of more attention than it has received in this part 

 ot Missouri in the past ; a fruit that is easily raised if its nature and 

 wants are studied ; a fruit tha*^ will occupy, if necessary, an out of-the- 

 way corner where the space will not be missed ; a fruit that makes an 

 excellent pie or sauce when green, and when ripe, eaten with sugar 

 and cream.it i5 no mean desert; and for jelly, in my estimation, it 

 has no equal. What can excel in color, consistency and flavor well 

 made currant jelly ? If the fruit, has been found that excels it for this 

 purpose, I for one have not yet seen it. The pleasant acid of the cur- 

 rant, ripening as it does, in the hotest part of the summer, is cooling 

 and healthy, and comes at a very opportune season. 



Then I say, raise currants; raise plenty of them ; let the children 

 have all the ripe ones they want ; and if the chickens and birds should 

 get a few of them it will do them no harm. But hold on, says one ; 

 currants wont grow in Southwest Missouri. That is just what they told 

 me about timothy and clover when I first came to Bates countj''. But 

 to day we have as fine meadows and pastures as they have anywhere ; 



