58 CURRANT. 



Nicol says, the American species is more easily culti 

 vated than the English, but is inferior to it in flavour. There 

 is reason to believe that the quality of fruit of each of these 

 species is subject to variations, which have not yet been prac- 

 tically distinguished. Their cultivation is now so well un- 

 derstood, that both may be considered with propriety as in- 

 mates of the fruit garden. Some raise them from seed sown 

 early in the spring; but it is best to set out plants, and lay 

 the runners as they progress in growth. 



It is customary in England to prepare beds on the edges 

 of ponds, which are banked up so as to admit of the wet 

 getting underneath them ; bog or peat earth is considered 

 essential for the roots to run in, but it has been discovered 

 that they can be cultivated in damp situations in a garden, 

 with a top dressing of peat or bog earth, and if they are 

 once suited as to the soil, the plants will multiply so as to 

 cover the bed in the course of a year or two, by means of 

 their long runners, which take root at different points. 

 From a very small space a very large quantity of Cranberries 

 may be gathered ; and they prove a remarkably regular 

 crop, scarcely affected by the state of the weather, and not 

 subject to the attacks of insects. Sir Joseph Banks gives 

 an account* (in Hort. Trans., 1. 71) of his success in culti- 

 vating this fruit. " In one year, viz., 1813, from 326 square 

 feet, or a bed about eighteen feet square, three and a half 

 Winchester bushels of berries were produced, which, at five 

 bottles to the gallon, gives one hundred and forty bottles, 

 each sufficient for one Cranberry pie, from two and a half 

 square feet." 



CURRANT. 

 GROSEILLER A GRAPPES. Ribes. 



THIS is a genus of well-known shrubs, much cultivated 

 for their fruit. It is a native of the Northern parts of 



